Yashwant wants PC to be probed

With Public Accounts Committee chairman Murli Manohar Joshi by his side, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha on Thursday upped the ante against the government over the 2G spectrum scandal probe.

With Public Accounts Committee chairman Murli Manohar Joshi by his side, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha on Thursday upped the ante against the government over the 2G spectrum scandal probe.

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With Joshi having submitted his report on the 2G issue as PAC chairman to the Speaker, the BJP is sharpening its attack on the top Congress leadership and trying to keep the issue alive by going to people as well as raking it up vociferously in the joint parliamentary committee.

Addressing Delhi BJP workers here in the presence of party president Nitin Gadkari and Joshi, Sinha defended the draft report of the PAC and demanded a CBI investigation into the role of the then finance minister P Chidambaram.

"Chidambaram first wrote to the PM about it (scarcity of spectrum), but later said the matter be treated as closed," Sinha said, referring to the observations in the draft report.

It was a charge that recently provoked home minister Chidambaram to question the intelligence of the authors, accuse them of distorting his comments and put up his letter in public domain for people to judge.

Sinha challenged the prime minister and his Cabinet to point out to a single factual inaccuracy in the PAC report prepared by Joshi as the body's chairman, and rubbished the Congress criticism that it had been outsourced.

"An officer of the Lok Sabha secretariat wrote the draft by hand," he said.

He added that the revelations of the report suggest that some people who should be in jail are outside.