The government and the Congress Party have unleashed an attack on Murli Manohar Joshi to discredit him as the chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee against the backdrop of the draft report he sent to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on the 2G spectrum scam. The government’s main objection has been on Dr Joshi’s
very style of functioning. It views he has been behaving like a BJP leader and thus failed to take the earlier PAC with him even on the issue of the 2G spectrum allocation.
A delay on the part of the Speaker to decide the status of the draft report is also helping Dr Joshi to go ahead with his campaign, feared sources. The government is not in favour of removal of Dr Joshi who has been appointed by the Speaker. But his style would certainly damage the committee spirit, it feared.
And on Thursday, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal charged Dr Joshi with using the chairmanship of the PAC as a comeback vehicle to revive his “sagging” political fortunes.
“Murli Manohar Joshi has been making a desperate attempt to use the PAC chairmanship as a comeback vehicle to revive his sagging political fortunes. After the rout of BJP under its senior leadership, it is witnessing an intra-party succession war amongst leaders much younger to Dr Joshi. “He now hopes that perhaps the PAC chairmanship will help him generate enough ammunition to be once again in the reckoning in the BJP,” Mr Bansal told a press conference.
Mr Bansal was referring to the recent remarks by Dr Joshi in which he had criticised the UPA for “converting the PAC into a captive committee”.
Replying to a question, Mr Bansal said the issue of breach of privilege against Dr Joshi was not before the government.
Asked whether the Lok Sabha Speaker has ever “rejected” a report by a parliamentary committee, especially the PAC, Mr Bansal said the Speaker does not reject a valid report of a committee adopted by it.
“You are presuming the document presented by him is the PAC report. But here is a case where Joshi’s report is not adopted. His document at best remains draft report,” he said.
Asked about the stand of the Congress on Joshi, he said he cannot comment on the approach of members of the new PAC.
“But the fact remains that by his continuous, malicious and false propaganda, a question about his credibility, a question on his acceptability, a question on his impartiality does arise,” he said.
While noting that the government would like to have faith in chairpersons of all parliamentary committees, including Dr Joshi, he said the “mindset” with which Dr Joshi is entering into the second term as PAC Chairman was a “matter of concern”.
He also charged Dr Joshi with “dragging” the Speaker’s office in the controversy.
“He continues dragging the office of the Speaker also saying the Speaker has no other option but to place it on the table of the House. He (Joshi) knows it very well that he has violated the provisions of the rules as the report was not put to vote, it was not adopted,”
he added.