Congress Core Group meet post JPC demand

The Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, are meeting here today for a strategy session in the backdrop of united opposition's demand for a joint parliamentary committee probe into the 2G spectrum scam.

The meeting of the Congress Core Group is being held amid a deadlock over the issue in the Winter Session of Parliament which started last week.

The opposition is now attacking the Prime Minister in the wake of Supreme Court's observation on Singh's "silence" on the spectrum scam and wants an explanation from him.

The Supreme Court has posed some embarrassing questions to the government about the lengthy delay on the part of the Prime Minister in taking a decision on a plea for sanction of prosecution of former Telecom Minister A Raja in the controversial 2G spectrum allocation issue.

The 2G spectrum allocation scandal, being dubbed by the opposition as the biggest one since Independence, has refused to die down even after the resignation of Raja and the opposition is adamant on the issue of JPC.

A luncheon meeting convened by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee failed to end the stalemate in Parliament over the demand for JPC into the spectrum issue, leaving no immediate signs for return of normalcy in both Houses.

BJP wants the JPC to probe the 2G scam as also Adarsh housing scam and corruption in Commonwealth Games.

Government is insisting that the Public Accounts Committee could do the job of finding out the truth in the matter and a JPC probe will be out of place on it.

Congress has maintained that it was "wrong and unfair" to say that the Prime Minister has not taken action and pointed out that he had secured the resignation of Raja.

The party's defence of the Prime Minister came as the opposition launched a broadside asking him to explain in Parliament how this "murky affair" was allowed to go on for so long.
       
BJP leader L K Advani said, "The PM should immediately respond to what the Supreme Court has said on the Raja issue".

He observed that it was for the "first time" in the history of independent India that the apex court has "pointed fingers" at the head of a Union Government.