Set up JPC on 2G for smooth functioning of Parliament: Karat

CPI(M) will reiterate the demand at February 8 meeting of parties convened by Pranab Mukherjee

Guwahati : CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat addressing a press conference at the party office in Guwahati on Monday. PTI Photo (PTI1_31_2011_000068A)

Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat urged the United Progressive Alliance government on Monday not to stand in the way of a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the 2G spectrum scam to ensure smooth functioning of Parliament in its budget session.

Mr. Karat told journalists here, after the party's State Secretariat meeting to finalise the number of seats it would contest, that his party would reiterate the demand for setting up a JPC at the meeting of parties convened by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for February 8 to discuss the budget session. The CPI(M) wanted smooth functioning of Parliament, he said.

Answering a question on black money allegedly stashed away in Swiss banks, Mr. Karat said that while the UPA government reduced the whole issue to a matter of tax evasion, a substantial sum kept in secret bank accounts abroad was ill-gotten. The Centre should trace the sources of this money and take steps to bring it back.

As for the coming Assembly elections in West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, he said his party had been urging the Centre to take steps to end the alleged collaboration between the Trinamool Congress and Maoists to ensure peaceful elections in West Bengal.

The Trinamool Congress, he said, was collaborating with Maoists to disrupt the working of the Left Front government. His party was yet to get a satisfactory reply from the Centre on how a party part of the government at the Centre could so openly collaborate with Maoists, he said. More evidence of the collaboration had come to light, and it was submitted to the Centre.

Asked about the prospects of the CPI(M) in the West Bengal elections, Mr. Karat said that compared with the Lok Sabha elections, the party was getting more responses from the people and recovering lost ground.

Mr. Karat said nine parties, including four Left parties, would stage a nationwide agitation from February 3 to 9 to pressure the UPA government to curb the spiralling prices of food items and other essential commodities. The protest would culminate in a dharna in Delhi.