Thaindian News

New Delhi, March 25 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday accused the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) of trying to derail the debate on corruption in the budget session of parliament and said the government was not interested in investigating the truth.

At a joint press conference, BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley said the government was at the receiving end day after day during the budget session but its answers were unconvincing.

“The government had to answer for its acts of omissions and commissions. The focus of the … opposition was to hold the government accountable for its misdeeds,” said Jaitley, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

He said the BJP had utilized the debate on the motion of thanks on President Pratibha Patil’s address, the general budget and the railway budget to highlight the government’s economic and political failures.

He accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of being privy to the appointment of “a tainted officer” to the post of Central Vigilance Commissioner.

“The judgment of the Supreme Court vindicated the stand of the BJP. The prime minister took the responsibility but failed to identify the accountability,” he said.

Sushma Swaraj said the government had to yield to the opposition demand for setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the allotment of 2G spectrum to private players.

“We hope the committee will function expeditiously and discover the truth. However, some political parties are keen to derail its functioning on extraneous issues rather than investigate the matter,” she said.

Referring to the debate on cash-for-votes controversy, the two leaders said the attempt of the prime minister and Home Minister P. Chidambaram was to deflect the debate on how and why the exposes took place instead of investigating the bribery.

The budget session, which started Feb 21, concluded Friday.