Joshi takes PAC fight to Speaker

Murli Manohar Joshi, chairman of Parliament’s public accounts committee (PAC), may submit his version of what transpired at Thursday’s meeting to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Saturday along with the controversial draft report of the committee. HT reports.

Murli Manohar Joshi, chairman of Parliament’s public accounts committee (PAC), may submit his version of what transpired at Thursday’s meeting to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Saturday along with the controversial draft report of the committee.

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Although the report on the 2G scam was rejected by 11 of the 21-member committee, Kumar may have to take a final call on its fate. Joshi’s one-year term as PAC chief is ending on Saturday.

The issue came up for discussion at the Congress core group, which was chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi and attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Backing party men’s action at the PAC meet, the group concluded that Joshi could not submit the report, as the PAC had not passed it. Also, any move by the BJP to re-nominate Joshi for another term will be opposed.

While minister of state for parliamentary affairs Ashwini Kumar accused Joshi of leaking out the report to the media “to score political points”, party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said, “The BJP and the Left are displaying blatant opportunism, collusion and complicity in destabilising secular forces like the Congress and the UPA.”

Countering the attack on Joshi, Yashwant Sinha, BJP leader and a PAC member, accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then finance minister P Chidambaram of complicity in the scam. He argued that a report could be rejected in parts, but a whole report cannot be rejected. “We definitely want the report to be presented.”

CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat said, “The way Congress and DMK members have behaved shows that they wanted to scuttle any report which will go into CAG report conclusions (on 2G scam).”

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said, “The facts that were coming to the surface were going to be very embarrassing for the UPA so obviously they chose the best available option to them to scuttle the probe.”