Now, Congress wants three BJP members out of 2G JPC

New Delhi, April 25 (IANS) Counter-attacking after 15 opposition members of the 2G JPC told Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar they had no confidence in its chairman P.C. Chacko, the Congress members Thursday met her tp demand three BJP MPs be removed from the panel or debarred from voting due to conflict of interest.

"We have urged the speaker to remove three BJP members - Ravi Shankar Prasad, Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh - from the JPC or debar them from voting as they were either telecom ministers or were part of a group of ministers on the issue during the NDA rule (1998-2004) and there would be a conflict of interest if the draft report would be discussed and finalised in their presence," a Congress MP who was part of the group told IANS.

The Congress MPs who met the speaker included Arun Kumar, S. Natchiappan, J.P. Agarwal, Bhakta Charan Das, Nirmal Khatri and Anand Bhaskarulu.

Earlier, 15 opposition members of the 30-member JPC asked the speaker to remove Chacko as chief of the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) looking into 2G spectrum allocation.

The opposition members are angry over the leaked draft report which has blamed former telecom minister A. Raja for the alleged losses in the allocation of 2G spectrum but cleared Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then finance minister P Chidamabaram of any wrong doing.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members are miffed as the draft report states the government incurred losses worth over Rs.40,000 core during the NDA rule under then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The meeting of the JPC to finalise the draft report Thursday was postponed following the death of Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Ambica Banerjee.