The NDA is so furious over the draft JPC report on 2G scam, particularly the references to the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and some other Ministers in his government, that some of the ambitious bills that the UPA is hoping to push through during the residual budget session of Parliament could become a casualty.
Only three days ago the government succeeded in getting the Bharatiya Janata Party’s support on the Land Acquisition Bill, which had been left hanging for the past six years.
A meeting of the NDA Parliamentary floor leaders ahead of the residual budget session, chaired by its working chairman L.K. Advani, made it clear that the UPA cannot expect the NDA to come to its rescue over legislative business.
Describing the report an “act of unmatched perfidy,” the NDA appealed to all the members of the JPC to reject it. The JPC is scheduled to meet in a couple of days to consider the report before it is presented before Parliament. As things stand, there is no hope of it being adopted and it may suffer the same fate as the Public Accounts Committee report on the telecom scam. The UPA members in the Committee rejected the report put up by PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi — the first time that the PAC had failed to adopt a report.
Briefing journalists on the deliberations of the NDA floor leaders, Mr. Advani said: “We were stunned to know from our members in the JPC that there are serious allegations made against Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie. We felt outraged at this kind of attitude of the UPA government.”
A statement adopted at the meeting wanted the JPC chairman to explain how and why A. Raja, one of the main accused, was not permitted to appear before the Committee despite his repeated requests. It said Mr. Chacko should explain how the two principal ministers of the government dealing with the matter — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram — had been exonerated without being questioned or examined by the JPC, and how a Cabinet Minister (a reference to the then Telecom Minister A. Raja) “mislead the Prime Minister.”
It also wanted to know where the collective responsibility of a government lay and whether the report was drafted by the chairman or some proxy of the UPA.
The BJP leaders present at the meeting were party chief Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Ravishankar Prasad, Nitin Gadkari and Jaswant Singh. The Janata Dal (United), whose ties with the BJP have under strain over Narendra Modi, was represented by Sharad Yadav, who is also the NDA convener. Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa represented the Shiromani Akali Dal.
The leaders declined to take questions on the row between the BJP and the JD (U) over the possible candidature of Mr. Modi for the post of Prime Minister.
