Bjp May Stall Proceedings Over Telecom Deals

Party president LK Advani yesterday announced at Kozhikode in Kerala that his party would pursue this matter vigorously when the Parliament resumes its session today.

Advani has demanded an apology from not only former communications minister Sukh Ram but the entire Congress Party for the stinking scandals that have come to light in the telecommunications sector in the last couple of months.

Reminding the stalling of Parliament before Lok Sabha elections by the entire opposition, Advani said the entire opposition had voiced the suspicion that massive corruption was involved in telecom deals. The parties had demanded Sukh Ram's removal.

The Congress party and the government had not only defended the minister, they had refused to even constitute an enquiry by a parliamentary committee, he said. BJP's former finance minister Jaswant Singh said his party would demand setting of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to go into the entire licencing process for basic and cellular telecom. The JPC , he said, should be assisted by experts - like in the case of the JPC into the securities scam.

Asked whether his party would ask for scrapping of licences for basic and cellular if the JPC came upon evidence of irregularities, keeping in view the Supreme Court clearing the tendering process, Singh said in that case the entire thing would become self-evident.

Only last week party general secretary Pramod Mahajan had said the licences should not be scrapped as the country would suffer. He had said that the Supreme Court had already upheld the tendering process and if corruption was established, the bribe takers and givers should be penalised. Maintaining that this was his individual opinion, he said retendering might get poor response.