DMK, BJP unite to blast JPC’s 2G scam report

12 Oct 2013

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Days after a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) submitted its report on the 2G spectrum allocation scam clearing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, both the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (deeply implicated in the scam) and the Bharatiya Janata Party have hit at the government with dissent notes.

Senior DMK leader T R Baalu on Friday submitted the notes to JPC chairman P C Chacko of the Congress, calling his report ''political''.

The BJP members of the JPC put in a similar dissent note, criticising Chacko for acting in a ''partisan manner'' to ensure a cover-up of the scam and indulging in "belated guesswork" to blame the National Democratic Alliance for an alleged Rs40,080 crore loss.

This is the first-ever open attack by the DMK on the Congress after it exited from the ruling United Progressive Alliance.

The similar dissent notes by the two parties has led to immediate speculation that they may be close to a political alliance, with general elections due in about seven months.

The DMK, headed by K Karunanidhi, said the JPC reached a preconceived conclusion motivated by political considerations.

It said the attempt was to make DMK MP Andimuthu Raja (who held the telecom portfolio in the previous UPA regime) a scapegoat in this scam. The note said the prime minister was fully aware of the methodology of 2G licensing.

The BJP members of the JPC said in their note that they apprehended their comments would be "edited" to ensure that its ''stinging'' observations are not made part of the final report.

Party leaders Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Gopinath Munde, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Dharmendra Pradhan and Harin Pathak addressed a press conference to release the dissent note, which accuses Chacko of heading a Congress operation to debunk the Comptroller & Auditor General's estimate of a loss of Rs1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer from the cheap and selective sale of spectrum.

They said former CAG Vinod Rai was treated in a most shabby manner, with Congress members of the JPC interrogating him in a rude and offensive manner. Rai was made to sit in the witness box despite being a constitutional authority instead of being given a seat next to the chairperson, the BJP said.

Key political witnesses like DMK leaders A Raja and Dayanidhi Maran were not called and neither were senior officials of the Prime Minister's Office, it added.

The dissent note said that while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had offered to appear before the Public Accounts Committee knowing full well that the committee had no power to summon him, Singh refused to present himself to the JPC.

Finance minister P Chidambaram too refused to appear before the JPC, it pointed out.

Chacko waited till the numbers in the JPC turned in his favour before summoning a meeting to quickly adopt the report without any discussion, the BJP leaders said.

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