The government and the Opposition are looking for a face-saving formula to break the impasse in Parliament on the issue of constituting a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) over 2G spectrum allocation. This has virtually brought the two Houses of Parliament standstill from November 10.
The Opposition has so far remained united on its demand of a JPC as no body wants to break the unity on it. Even supporting parties like the Samajwadi Party, BSP and the RJD have not backed the government stand on this issue, while the Congress allies like the Trinamul Congress, DMK and the NCP do not see anything wrong on the Opposition’s demand of a JPC.
But a section of the Opposition does not want to work with the BJP led NDA on this issue.
The Congress core group met here on Friday night on this issue and was said to have discussed alternative suggestions other than a JPC. Alternative mechanism could be a parliamentary inquiry without powers of summoning the Prime Minister.
The core group consisting of the party chief Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union ministers Pranab Mukherjee, A.K. Antony, P. Chidambaram and THE Congress president’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, discussed this issue once again in the backdrop of the fresh outputs it received from the behind-scene meetings.
After the meeting, Dr Singh held brief parleys with the home minister separately.