NDA criticises UPA for failure to form JPC
By IANSSunday, February 20, 2011
ROHTAK - Leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj Sunday condemned the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s reluctance to form a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe various corruption scandals surrounding it.
“Earlier also, JPC was formed in the country to probe various cases of corruption. But we do not understand that why the present government is so reluctant towards the demand of constitution of JPC again,” Swaraj asked, while addressing the National Democratic Alliance’s ‘Mahasangram rally’ here.
“(Finance Minister) Pranab Mukherjee had once said that opposition is acting like Maoists over the issue of JPC. Maoists always use the language of the gun but we have not raised a gun towards anybody. We are demanding only legitimate things,” she said.
Sushma Swaraj said that opposition would raise the issue of corruption with full force during the budget session of parliament starting Monday.
Democracy is in danger because all its four pillars - legislature, executive, judiciary and press - are trembling, she pointed out.
Earlier, BJP leaders claimed that senior leaders L.K. Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh and leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley would also address the rally, but they did not turn up.
NDA convenor and Janta Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav said: “We are strongly demanding the constitution of JPC to probe the recent scams, including the 2G spectrum allocation scam, Commonwealth Games (CWG) scam and Adarsh housing scam.”
“It is sad that our prime minister Manmohan Singh has failed to give any satisfactory reply over these issues. He has no stand of his own. He is the leader of most corrupted union cabinet ever,” he said.