Face JPC or resign, NDA tells PM

DHNS

New Delhi, 22 December 2010: Launching its two-month long campaign against corruption, the BJP-led NDA on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to either face a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G spectrum scam or tender resignation.

 

 

Targeting the prime minister at the rally – similar rallies will be held across the country over the next two months until the budget session of Parliament - the NDA leaders said his offer to appear before the Public Accounts Committee was not enough and the government should agree to a JPC probe into the scam.

 

The leaders of the Janata Dal-United, Akali Dal and Shiv Sena among others who were present at the rally also attacked the Congress saying the year 2010 would be remembered as the “year of corruption” and of “stinking scams” which the Congress-led UPA failed to prevent.

 

The leaders, however, carefully avoided mentioning Karnataka and its Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa who has himself been entangled in alleged corruption and nepotism. The BJP has refused to remove him from the post.

 

‘Final appeal

 

Addressing the moderately-attended gathering, BJP veteran L K Advani said he was making “one final appeal” to the PM to accept the demand and agree for constituting the JPC to go into the Rs 1.76 lakh crore scam. The senior leader said the “campaign against corruption was in a way a campaign against the Prime Minister. He should come before the JPC and say whatever he wants to say.”

 

Singh recently had told the AICC session here that he had nothing to hide and was prepared to appear before PAC. The former BJP president said that even the Supreme Court had for the first time in history asked the Prime Minister’s Office to submit an affidavit on what happened in the 2G scam case.

 

BJP leader Arun Jaitely asked the PM to give up his job if he was not ready to face JPC. “The prime minister should form the JPC and answer our questions and if you (PM) cannot answer our questions, then you should step down from your post on moral grounds,” the leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha said. Attacking the Congress, Jaitley said corporates and lobbyists decided policies in the Congress regime.

 

Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj who was equally critical of the Congress and the UPA government, asked: “Why are they afraid of JPC?”