Will demand JPC but also want parliament to function: Karat

KOLKATA - Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat said Sunday his party will stick to its stand of demanding a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the 2G spectrum scam but would talk to all secular opposition parties to take a common approach so that parliament can function during its upcoming budget session.

“We have discussed the matter within the party and we stick to our demand of JPC. We also want parliament to function,” said Karat, to questions on his party’s strategy for the budget session beginning in the third week of February.

“Now how to achieve these two things? We have decided that we will talk to all other secular opposition parties we have been cooperating with and decide a common approach within these two parameters. We will try to work it out with secular opposition parties,” he said, addressing media persons here after the conclusion of the two-day meeting of the CPI-M politburo.

The opposition has been relentlessly demanding setting up of a JPC to probe the irregularities in the allocation of the 2G telecom spectrum in 2008. The government has rejected the demand. This led to the entire Nov 9-Dec 13, 2010 winter session of parliament being washed out.

On Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s readiness to appear before parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Karat said: “I have been told that PAC doesn’t have been any provision of having any minister before it apart from saying that he wants to appear. I think it’s more of a political gesture. It is better that he (the prime minister) appears before the JPC rather than the PAC.”