BJP members abstain from JPC meeting on 2G spectrum scam

NEW DELHI: BJP members in JPC on 2G spectrum scam abstained the panel proceedings today saying unless Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance MinisterP Chidambaram are called before it the Committee will not be able to deliver a fair report. BJP also accused JPC chairman P C Chacko of running the panel in a "dictatorial" way. The six BJP members in the JPC had, during its last meeting on October 11, stayed away from the proceedings accusing Chacko of failing to finalise the list of witnesses and sought the inclusion of the Prime Minister and Chidambaram in it. "...To run the JPC unlike the parliamentary tradition and in a sort of a dictatorial way, I think the JPC is not going to deliver a complete fair report. I appeal to Congress not to sabotage every inquiry into the scandals which this government is famous or infamous for," party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said. She said "I think the JPC will achieve nothing much and therefore BJP's demand from the beginning has been that we want the FM and the PM to come in...BJP's position as regards the JPC remains the same. We want to call the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister because otherwise the three main people who have been involved in this matter will not be inquired into." Earlier in July and September, BJP members had stormed out of the JPC meeting accusing Chacko of being "bia sed" and charged Congress members of the panel with using foul language against them. BJP has told Chacko that it will not attend the JPC meetings till the list of witnesses is finalised and the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister are summoned. Sitharaman said BJP maintains its position of not attending the panel proceedings till the Prime Minister and the Finance minister are called before it. "For the sake of the people of this country, I think it is important to have the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister to appear (before JPC). Today because this option has not still been given and on the contrary we are being told not to ask any more questions, BJP has stayed away from JPC," she said. The BJP spokesperson reminded that had it not been for her party JPC would not have been constituted. "We have been keen to know what policy formulations went wrong, what checks and balances were removed, what kind of tweaking of policy had happened and in what way the decision- makers had kept this country away from the facts," she said. Sitharaman said more complications have to be looked into and reiterated BJP's position of making the then Finance Minister and Prime Minister a part of this JPC. She said though the criminality part in the 2G case was being looked into by the courts, what went wrong in the policy is still to be looked into.