Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 6 (IANS) The Congress Friday targeted Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha for his remarks against Home Minister P. Chidambaram on the 2G spectrum allocation, and said it would complain to the Lok Sabha speaker against his “bias” on the matter despite being a member of a parliamentary probe committee.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters here that Yashwant Singh, former finance minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, cannot claim any legal or moral right to continue on the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probing the 2G spectrum allocation issue.

“We have exercised our political, legal and moral right to start the process of shaming the BJP and Yashwant Sinha from this podium. Secondly, we do not, in any manner, rule out taking other action, including complaining formally to the speaker,” Singhvi said.

“Thirdly, as far as the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) is concerned, formal written complaints are already lodged with the speaker,” Singhvi said.

“Sinha, of course, cannot claim any legal or moral right to continue on the JPC. He is guilty of using vituperative language of premeditation, pre-judgment and of gross politicisation of an issue which should never be done in the glorious traditions which we established on joint parliamentary committees. He has, therefore, thrown to winds all norms of parliamentary democracy itself,” the Congress spokesperson said.

Singhvi also appealed to the Central Bureau of Investigation and the JPC to bring out an interim report on the two telecom ministers in the Vajpayee government, late Pramod Mahajan and Arun Shourie, for their relevant periods in office.

He said during the two BJP leaders’ period in office as telecom ministers, “unprecedented heights of arbitrariness and violation of all norms and throwing to winds all norms was done.”

Yashwant Sinha had said that Chidambaram, as the finance minister, was directly responsible for the 2G scam.

He said the PAC was convinced that some people involved in the scam, who deserved to be in jail, were still roaming free. “We have seen all the documents on the issue. Until Chidambaram comes under the CBI lens, the 2G spectrum case will not be solved,” he added.

Singhvi also attacked PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi, saying the nation had already seen the “amazing fiction trotted out by the chairman of the PAC propounding an astonishing proposition that a draft report opposed by a majority and never put to vote, should be adopted as a PAC report.”

“We now find that a member of the JPC - an entity which is supposed to be a judge, an evaluator of similar issues, including telecom issues - giving advance findings, opinions, conclusions and views in press conferences.”

“Vituperative language was used by Yashwant Sinha against the home minister and the then finance minister, and conclusions and opinions were trotted by those supposed to be judges on this issue,” he added.