BY IANS,
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the 2G spectrum allocation scam Wednesday walked out from a meeting of the committee, calling it a “kangaroo court”.
They were upset over former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee being named among those the JPC wanted to interrogate.
They were also miffed as the Congress wanted to summon Arun Shourie, who was the telecom minister during the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) rule.
BJP members wanted to summon Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram. Their demand was rejected by Congress members, a source said.
“It is a kangaroo court, so we came out,” a BJP member said.
Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Dharmendra Pradhan, Gopinath Munde and Ravi Shankar Prasad were among the BJP leaders who walked out of the meeting, which was expected to finalise the list of people who shall depose before the JPC.
Yashwant Sinha alleged that “foul language” was used by Congress members in the JPC.
“They began using foul language against us. The chairman made no comment on it despite some of them making accusations against us, so we decided to walk out,” Sinha said.
The JPC has 30 members — 20 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha. It is headed by Congress leader P.C. Chacko.
BJP has six members, while Congress has 11 members in the JPC, which was formed to look into the 2G spectrum allocation scam.