Pranab hopes budget session will run smoothly
By IANSSunday, January 2, 2011
KOLKATA - Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Sunday hoped that the upcoming budget session of parliament will run smoothly, but described as “unfortunate” the opposition parties’ rejection of his suggestion for a special session to break the logjam on the 2G scam issue.
“We are trying (to break the deadlock),” Mukherjee told media persons here and referred to the meetings held between the United Progressive Alliance government, the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other political parties on the issue which had led to the Nov 9-Dec 13, 2010 winter session being washed out.
“I hope the budget session will run smoothly because what happened is a distortion. It is not correct and normal. In any system a distortion is temporary, normal functioning is permanent,” he said.
The opposition has threatened to carry forward its protest to the budget session that begins in the last week of February 2011.
When asked about the prospects for the special session, Mukherjee said he had made the offer in an interaction to a television channel as the leader of the Lok Sabha to discuss these issues.
“But unfortunately opposition parties have rejected it. Therefore, there is no question,” he said.
The opposition has insisted on its demand for a joint parliamentary committee(JPC) probe into the 2G scandal, but the government has maintained that the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report on the spectrum allocation to telecom companies in 2008 at below-market prices was being looked into by parliament’s Public Accounts Committee.
