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Journalism of Courage
The logjam in Parliament is set to continue as the government on Sunday made it clear to the BJP that its demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into corruption scandals cannot be accepted. UPAs chief trouble-shooter Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee reached out to L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj with two alternative proposals but the main opposition party refused to relent.
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar also got into the act to end the deadlock,which has paralysed Parliament for the past 10 days. She is planning to convene an all-party meeting on Tuesday to discuss the issue and try to find a way out.
Mukherjee spoke to CPM leader Sitaram Yechury as well before talking to the BJP leadership in an attempt to resolve the imbroglio. The CPM,sources said,was willing to be flexible but wanted the government to walk the extra mile. Yechury told The Indian Express that the CPM wanted Parliament to function. He said the Left parties still held the view that a JPC should be formed to probe the 2G scam. However,the sources said the Left was agreeable to a middle path and had conveyed it to Mukherjee.
Adding a new dimension to the ongoing war of words between the government and Opposition over corruption,Advani in an entry in his blog asked the government to ratify a United Nations Convention against Corruption and reminded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to fulfil his poll-time promise of bringing back to India black money stashed away in tax havens abroad. He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lacked the political will to bring back the black money.
Mukherjee spoke to Advani and Swaraj over phone and appealed to them to withdraw their demand for a JPC. He is learnt to have told the BJP leaders that the government was ready for a threadbare discussion in Parliament on 2G spectrum and other scandals. The sources said he also asked the BJP leaders whether the party would be satisfied if the Supreme Court decides to monitor the CBI probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
The government is primarily and constitutionally accountable to Parliament and only Parliament. It is not accountable to any other forum. The best forum to look into the scandals is Parliament. The option is only a JPC, senior BJP leader S S Ahluwalia told The Indian Express. Swaraj said,We told Pranab Mukherjee that we could not give up demand for JPC.
To Mukherjees query as to whether the BJP could relent on its JPC demand if the Supreme Court decides to monitor the probe,Swaraj,it is learnt,asked how can the government or for that matter the Opposition say what the apex court would do.
BJP sources said Mukherjees mention of the Supreme Court indicated that the government could ask the court to monitor the probe to blunt the Opposition onslaught.
