Pranab meets PM to discuss ways to end parliament impasse

NEW DELHI - Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday evening to brief him about the stalemate at the all-party meeting with the opposition persisting with its demand of a parliamentary probe into the 2G spectrum controversy.

Sources said Mukherjee apprised the prime minister of the opposition not agreeing to the suggestion of the public accounts committee (PAC) of parliament, with the help of an investigative mechanism, looking into the issue.

With some United Progressive Alliance allies including the Trinamool Congress offering to extend their full cooperation if the government agrees to the demand of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to break the two-week stalemate in parliament, the Congress leaders were deliberating various options, the sources said.

At the all-party luncheon meeting called by Mukherjee, the opposition rejected the government’s proposal for attaching a multi-disciplinary probe team with the PAC to go into the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the 2G spectrum.

Mukherjee told the opposition parties that he would get back to them after consulting the prime minister.

Though the Congress has officially maintained there was no need of a JPC as the PAC, headed by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member, will go into the CAG report, a senior Congress leader said the demand for a parliamentary committee could be considered. He said that JPC was always agreed to “reluctantly”, and when accepted it “does not mean defeat” of the government.

DMK, an ally of the UPA, said at the meeting that if a JPC is constituted, it should look into policy decisions on spectrum allocation since 1999, the sources said.