Covid-19: NDA-Congress slugfest at PAC meet over vaccines

Sparks flew at a meeting of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday as members from BJP and JDU vehemently opposed committee chairman Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary's bid to take up the issue of vaccine production, purchase and distribution.

While there has been a buzz that the chairman made an offer to resign after the row, sources in the panel did not confirm this to Deccan Herald. Chowdhury is learnt to have said if he was saying something inappropriate, he would step down as the chairman of the PAC.

The committee, which has just one more Congress member Shakti Sinh Gohil, met on Wednesday for consideration of a memorandum regarding selection of subjects for examination during 2021-22.

The row erupted as Chowdhury, in his concluding remarks, said the PAC should also take up the issue of vaccine production, purchase and distribution. Objecting to it, members from BJP and JDU said this was not part of the agenda and cannot be foisted upon the panel. Jagdambika Pal led the protest from the BJP, while JDU member Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh took strong umbrage, saying the chairman should tell this to the media if he wants to politicise the matter, a source said.

The JDU member, according to the source, also asked Chowdhury that when this was not on the agenda, why would he include in the concluding remarks.

This was the first time the PAC met after the outbreak of the second wave of coronavirus. What irked the members was Chowdhury reading a suo-motu statement critical of the Centre's Covid management.

The committee has 22 members and the NDA has a clear majority in it. The PAC, the mother of all parliamentary committees, can adopt any report only with consensus. Even if one member dissents, the report cannot be adopted, which is not the case with other committees.

When Chowdhury raised the issue, members from other parties like BJD and DMK kept quiet. "Practically, he was cowed down," said a source. When BJP members were trying to shout Chowdhury down, Congress member Gohil urged them to listen to the chairman.

BJP MP from Baghpat, Satyapal Singh, tried to pacify his party members, but Chowdhury got no support from anyone in the meeting, a source said. Last year too, Chowdhury had encountered similar protests in the PAC when he had tried to take up the issue of Chinese aggression in Ladakh.

When contacted, PAC member B Mahtab, from BJD, refused to divulge the details of what happened in the meeting, but cited the rule which makes it mandatory for the agenda to be decided unanimously. "This is the centenary year of PAC, founded in 1921. These rules have been there for the last 100 years," said Mahtab.

This is not the first time the PAC got into a row. A similar scene had played out in 2014 in the PAC headed by Congress leader K V Thomas. Dubey, who was a key member in PAC heading some of its committees, had written to then Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, seeking to move a privilege motion against Thomas after the latter kept insisting on calling PM Narendra Modi before the panel on the demonetisation decision.

The political slugfest in PAC meeting on Wednesday happened in full view of officials, including AG and Deputy AGs, who were present during the meeting. Parliamentary panels, which are supposed to function in a non-partisan manner, have more than often fallen prey to political affiliations.

A PAC member, who was in favour of discussing the vaccine issue, rued that the matter could have been taken up after building consensus on it as it was an issue related to public health and welfare.

PAC is the second parliamentary committee chaired by a Congress member, which saw such rows in the recent past.

Last month, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by Shashi Tharoor, had got into a row with BJP member Nishikant Dubey writing to Lok Sabha Speaker and seeking not only his "sacking" from the position of panel chairperson, but also "disqualification from membership of Lok Sabha" under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India.

This was after Tharoor had written to IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, slamming the police probe against Twitter and seeking some details.