Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Gurudas Dasgupta, MP and a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the 2G scam, has said that the JPC will not be able to present a unanimous report to Parliament if committee chairman P.C. Chacko persisted with his ‘partisan’ attitude.
“The way the committee’s proceedings are being designed, the members will not have time even to read it. The chairman appears to have resolved that there cannot be a unanimous report. Despite several requests, the chairman has refused to convene a meeting to discuss preparation of the report. There is also no conscious effort to explore the possibility for unanimity. This will defeat the very purpose the JPC,” Mr. Dasgupta told The Hindu here on Friday.
Mr. Dasgupta, who was here to attend the three-day meeting of the AITUC general council beginning here on Saturday, pointed out that the JPC should submit its report before the last day of the ongoing session of Parliament in early May. “From the beginning, Mr. Chacko’s effort has been to disprove the findings of the CAG and, worse, to attribute motives to the CAG and prove that there has been no loss in the 2G spectrum auction given the social gains. This is not for what the JPC was constituted,” he said.
Sugar decontrol
Mr. Dasgupta also came down on the sugar decontrol decision of the Centre and pointed out that this amounted to liberalising trade. The decision to decontrol diesel pricing had dealt a blow to the people and the present decision would aggravate the situation. The government would have to raise additional money to subsidise sale of sugar through the public distribution system, he said.
