NEW DELHI:The reworked report of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Murli Manohar Joshi, which questions the prime minister’s role in the 2G spectrum allocation, has sparked a row, with the Congress dismissing the report as “motivated” and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asserting that there is “nothing wrong” with it.
The report is set to create more trouble for the government already battling corruption charges, in the face of which Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia asserted that the cabinet “can’t be micro-managed” by the prime minister.
Joshi, a senior BJP leader, circulated his reworked report among PAC members Saturday. The report questions the role of Manmohan Singh and the then finance minister P. Chidambaram in the allocation of 2G spectrum, which allegedly resulted in the loss of crores of rupees to the national exchequer.
The report is set to provide more ammunition to a combative opposition determined to pin down the government over a slew of corruption charges, including irregularities in the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
The Congress and UPA members of the PAC Sunday reacted sharply to Joshi’s reworked report and indicated their intention to reject it. They demanded the removal of Joshi from the post of the PAC chairman and accused him of being “interested in politics”.
The Congress said the re-circulation of the controversial PAC report amounted to making the committee “partisan and motivated”.
“Clearly the chairman and the BJP are bent upon making the committee political, partisan and motivated. The PAC chairman or the PAC are not oxygen generating medical units to breathe life into a constitutionally dead PAC report,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said.
“Secondly, it has to be decided whether it is more appropriate for a larger or more specific committee like the JPC set up for this purpose to look into the matter or the PAC, which is general, and is riven with a vote of no-confidence in its chairman and holds no live reference on the 2G issue as of now,” he said.
Congress MP and PAC member Sanjay Nirupam rubbished the reworked report, saying it “deserves to be thrown into the dustbin”.(IANS)