New Delhi: With the deadlock in Parliament continuing, MPs from non-NDA Opposition parties, including the Left, would meet on Monday to press for acceptance of their
demand for a JPC probe into the spectrum scam.
In a bid to intensify pressure on the government, they
would also hold an hour-long sit-in inside the Parliament
precincts on Tuesday.
This was decided at a meeting of the leaders of CPI(M),
CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc, TDP, AIADMK, JD(S), MDMK, BJD, AGP and
RLD in Parliament this afternoon.
The parties have been blaming the government for the
deadlock in Parliament as a result of "non-acceptance" of
their demand for setting up of a JPC and saying they have not
been able to raise people`s issues.
"Leaders of 11 parties today decided to hold a General
Body meeting of all their MPs from Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha
on Monday. They are expected to adopt a resolution that the
government, by not accepting our JPC demand, is squarely
responsible for the logjam in Parliament.
"As the two Houses are not functioning, we have been
deprived of the opportunity to raise burning issues affecting
the people like price rise and unemployment," CPI(M) leader
Basudeb Acharia told a news agency.
He said the MPs would also hold a protest sit-in near
the statue of Mahatma Gandhi inside the Parliament premises.
Eighty MPs of these parties had last week marched to
Rashtrapati Bhavan from the Parliament House and submitted a
memorandum to President Pratibha Patil urging her to "advise"
the Government to accept the Opposition demand for a JPC probe
into the 2G spectrum scam, which led to an estimated loss of
Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer.
Terming the 2G spectrum scam as "biggest corruption after
independence", these parties said that JPC was required not
only to find out who was behind it and punish them but also to
probe how the system was subjected to "massive manipulation".
CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury had then said that it would
have required only Rs 1.10 lakh crore to give the entire
population 35 kg rice at the rate of Rs 3 a kg. "The money
could have been used to eliminate hunger from the country", he
had said.
PTI
