Stepping up attack on the BJP, the Congress on Friday demanded Saffron leader Yashwant Sinha’s exit from the JPC for giving pre-judgment on the issue. Mr Sinha had recently held home minister P. Chidambaram “directly responsible” for the scandal as the then finance minister.
Maintaining that Mr Sinha’s charge against Mr Chidambram was “an absurd allegation of a biased mind” and a “personal vituperative attack”, AICC spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi sought to give a clean chit to Mr Chidambram.
The spokesperson alleged that by targeting Mr Chidambaram, Mr Sinha, himself a former finance minister, has thrown to the winds all norms of parliamentary democracy and has indulged in “pre-judging and gross politicisation of the issue” despite being a JPC member.
“It is absolutely murder of constitutional norms and rules the way Mr Sinha spoke on the issue. He has no moral or other right to remain in the JPC. We do not rule out any other action against him, including complaint to the Lok Sabha Speaker,” Mr Singhvi said, adding that the BJP is doing politics on the “rejected report” of the PAC.
Seeking to take the battle to the BJP court, Mr Singhvi wanted the CBI as also the JPC to come out with an interim report on late Pramod Mahajan’s role as telecom minister in the scandal as also that of his successor Arun Shourie.
Late Mahajan’s role in the issue was “not only well known, but deep, pervasive and graphic” and Mr Shourie carried that “glorious tradition”.