New Delhi, Aug 23 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yaswant Sinha on Thursday demanded that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram should depose before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G spectrum allocation.
"The purpose (of the government) is to indulge in corruption and cover up...the government wants us to be a mute witness," Sinha told mediapersons here.
Explaining in detail why five of its members walked out of a meeting of a parliamentary committee on the 2G scam, he alleged that the Congress party members had used foul language in yesterday's JPC meeting prompting the BJP members to stage a walk out.
Sinha said that his party would decide its future course of action after receiving a response from JPC Chairman P.C Chacko.
The former Finance Minister said the whole Winter Session of 2010 was lost on account of the stubbornness of the government not to concede to the JPC demand of the non-UPA parties
"Then when the Budget Session was approaching in 2011, they quickly conceded to the demand and a JPC was constituted in February 2011. And it started functioning from March 2011," he added.
Sinha said that he was nominated along with Jaswant Singh by the BJP as a member of the JPC.
"The BJP nominated Jaswant Singh and me among others to be members of the committee. Right in the beginning, the ruling party members raised objection to our being members of the JPC. We had given our list. The resolution in the Lok Sabha was moved by the then Leader of Opposition Pranab Mukherjee. Similarly in the Rajya Sabha, it was moved by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal," said Sinha.
He further said some members of the ruling party had also raised objections to him and Jaswant Singh being members of the JPC.
"When our names were suggested, nobody raised any objection. It came in the form of a resolution before both houses of Parliament. But when we met in the JPC, right in the beginning some members of the ruling party started raising the demand that Jaswant Singh and I could not be the members of the JPC because we were interested parties and some arguments took place," said Sinha.
"The matter was referred to the honourable Speaker and the honourable Speaker gave a direction that there could be no objection to both of us continuing in the JPC. This is the mindset, which the ruling party members brought to bare on the functioning of JPC from day one," he added.
The BJP had earlier accused the Congress members of using 'foul and unparliamentary language' in the meeting.
Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad had earlier said it was surprising that junior members of Congress accused Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh of playing politics by calling for the questioning of the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister.
He said that no fair investigation could be held unless the Prime Minister and Finance Minister were called before the Committee. (ANI)
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