Digvijaya heaps praise on Joshi

A day after the BJP managed to buy peace with its leader Murli Manohar Joshi over the JPC issue, the Congress on Friday made a fresh attempt to divide the main opposition party by showering praise on the PAC chairman.

A day after the BJP managed to buy peace with its leader Murli Manohar Joshi over the JPC issue, the Congress on Friday made a fresh attempt to divide the main opposition party by showering praise on the PAC chairman.

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The praise came from none other than Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, who in the recent past has launched a fierce attack on the BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits on the “Hindu terror” issue, even likening the RSS’s “hatred of Muslims” to that harboured by the Nazis towards the Jews.

“As the chairman of PAC, he (Joshi) believes in the committee’s vast powers in bringing greater accountability to public spending and he commits himself to playing this role efficiently,” Singh said.

While Joshi-led public accounts committee (PAC) is already pushing ahead with its inquiry into the 2G spectrum scam, the BJP is stuck to its demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe.

BJP president Nitin Gadkari in a recent interview to HT claimed “JPC is a wider body with wider powers in comparison to PAC and that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not aware of the parliamentary procedure”. Singh has demanded a privilege motion against Gadkari for “his remarks against PAC”.

Singh’s praise of Joshi, a known BJP hardliner who is more in sync with the RSS objectives than most other leaders, is seen as another clever ploy to cash in on the divide in the main opposition party over the PAC versus JPC issue after the Prime Minister’s offer to appear before PAC on the 2G-spectrum issue.

Singh described the offer as a “historical milestone”.