Corruption Watch

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[url="http://www.dailypioneer.com/307240/Too-clever-by-half.html"]Too clever by half[/url]

Congress ploy to foil JPC demand exposed

Continued efforts of the Congress to reiterate the importance of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee in probing the `1.76 lakh crore 2G Spectrum scam is a desperate attempt to divert attention from the demand of a majority of parliamentarians for a Joint Parliamentary Committee inquiry and divide the Opposition on the issue. On the back foot and faced with another round of House disruption once Parliament meets for the Budget Session in 2011, the Congress has thrown in the Opposition’s face what it sees as a ‘master stroke’ — the Prime Minister’s letter to the PAC offering to appear before it. The fact that Mr Manmohan Singh is willing to appear before one panel but steadfastly refuses the constitution of another is because the JPC has the mandate to cast its net far and wide, unlike the PAC which cannot question policy issues. Considering that faulty policies of the UPA Government are at the root of the scam, the Congress obviously does not want to take a chance by setting up a JPC. If the JPC is formed and it decides to summon the Prime Minister, he will have some answering to do because he presided over those policies. At the best, he would have to extricate himself by pointing out that he had called for a freeze on spectrum licence allocation until the contentious issues were sorted out. But then, he would have to explain how his then Telecom Minister, Mr A Raja, got away with flouting his directive. This is an uncomfortable question for Mr Singh, and it will expose his helplessness as the head of the Government. Coalition dharma cannot be cited by him for explaining his inaction that has caused massive loss to the public exchequer. Nor can he afford to suggest that the need to sustain the Congress’s alliance with the DMK, to which Mr Raja belongs, was reason enough for him to turn a Nelson’s eye to the open loot in the Telecom Ministry. The Opposition has fortunately seen through the game and remains united on the demand for a JPC probe. Apart from harping on the PAC, the Congress had hoped to dent that unity by suggesting a special session of Parliament to discuss the demand for a JPC inquiry. But the party knows there is nothing to discuss. So why did Mr Pranab Mukherjee offer a special session? Was he hopeful of using his persuasive skills to soften the stand of some Opposition parties?



For a party and Prime Minister who claim there is nothing to hide, it is strange that they should continue to duck the demand for an overarching inquiry that will also cover the period when the NDA was in power. Besides the issue of faulty policies, there are other matters such as the role of the corporate sector and Mr Raja’s links with some lobbyists who assured him that the Telecom Ministry was his for the asking when the Government was being formed that need to be investigated. These are not matters that the PAC can handle. In any case, the Opposition has not objected to the PAC doing its job. Let that continue within the prescribed format. But the PAC scrutinising the CAG’s report is not the same as a JPC inquiry. There are already several probes going on: The Telecom Ministry has set up a panel to review its functioning on the issue; the CBI is inquiring into the scam under the Supreme Court’s supervision; the Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate too are in the picture. None of them precludes a JPC inquiry.