The Bharatiya Janata Party said on Tuesday that the government’s insistence on tabling the JPC report on 2G spectrum in Parliament, despite the Opposition’s fierce resistance, indicates a “brazen” attempt at covering up corruption and the Prime Minister’s role.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitely and his deputy Ravi Shankar Prasad accused the JPC chairperson P.C. Chacko of “altering” their dissent note.
“Mr. Chacko has acted less as a JPC chairperson and more as an agent and spokesperson of the Congress,” said Mr. Prasad. “There are paragraphs after paragraphs that are missing from the dissent note that we had submitted.” The report with the altered dissent notes was an attempt by the government to “hide its corruption.”
The alteration by Mr. Chacko was a “breach of privilege,” Mr. Jaitley said.
“The principal issues that the JPC had to examine were with regard to whether spectrum allocated in 2008 could be given at 2001 prices; whether the goalposts could be shifted in relation to the procedure by which the spectrum had to be allocated; and whether the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister were in the know of and privy to the decisions taken by the then Telecom Minister. The Majority Report bypasses most of these issues. On the contrary, it has devoted large sections to blaming the NDA government. Obviously, the report will carry no credibility.”
He accused the UPA government of having failed to learn from the results of the recent Assembly elections.The alteration to the dissent note, the BJP said, had “exposed” the government.
