‘PM, Sonia responsible for “damaging” JPC’

The draft report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee has created a political storm with the opposition parties terming it as a ‘Congress’ report. Business Line caught up with Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader and member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on spectrum allocations, Yashwant Sinha.

Excerpts from the interview:

The draft report of the JPC is in the public domain now. How do you view this report?

This report is a bundle of lies and should be rejected in toto with the contempt it deserves. Unfortunately, PC Chacko has not behaved as the chairman of the most effective committee that Parliament of India can constitute, namely Joint Parliamentary Committee.

He has, from day one, behaved in a very partisan manner with the interest of only his party. We will not allow him to succeed. There is no point is discussing the merit of a report which is a bundle of lies.

What will be your strategy now? Will you attend the JPC meeting on Thursday?

The first strategy is to deal with it in the JPC. Then we will work out a strategy how to take it to the people. We are in touch with everyone in the JPC who are likeminded. I will personally reach out to everyone to make a common cause.

The effort of this Government is to cover up its misdeed. First indulge in corruption. Then deliberately try and cover up that corruption. Chacko is a small fry. I hold the Prime Minister and (Congress President) Sonia Gandhi responsible for this attitude of the Congress party.

What has happened by the publication of this draft report is that an incalculable damage has been done to the institution of a joint parliamentary committee and to Parliament it self.

People are losing faith in parliament, they are losing faith in Parliamentary democracy; they are losing faith in politicians. This will be another nail in that coffin. I don’t know how many years it will take to repair the damage done by this JPC.

Who has done this damage?

The whole Congress party. The Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi, with P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Manish Tewari along with Chacko are co-conspirators in this case. They scuttled the PAC report. They are now here to destroy this JPC.

In recent months, we were demanding two things. First, we must call the delinquent corporates, second we must call (former telecom Minister) A. Raja, who had himself offered to appear before JPC, (the Finance Minister) P. Chidambaram and the Prime Minister.

On the one hand he (Prime Minister) was making grand gestures (of appearing before JPC). Behind the scenes, he was telling Chacko and his members not to agree to this. If we were depending only on documents, why did we waste our time examining the witnesses? When you are face to face with a witness we can cross examine them and get at the truth.

(Attorney-General) G.E. Vahanavati, said before the committee that what came to him was different than what was ultimately in the file and there was interpolations. Raja challenged this and wanted to contradict him before the committee for which he was given no opportunity.

Earlier JPCs, particularly the one on stock market scam, could come up with suggestions on the policies. Will the recent developments result in people losing faith in Parliamentary system?

Absolutely. The shame of the Bofors JPC was undone to a very large extend by the market scam JPC of 1992, headed by Ram Niwas Mirdha. Mirdha, a Congressman, was gem of a person. He made no difference between his party members and the rest of us who did not belong to the Congress. We were given a free hand with regard to calling of witnesses.

A clear attempt was made by him to bring a consensus report by constituting a multi-party drafting committee. He asked me to write the report on Andhra Bank financial services for instance, in which the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s son was involved. Most of the report was written by Jaswant Singh. He did not make a distinction between ruling and opposition parties.

This report indicated the steps which have to be taken in future to improve the system which were seriously implemented by the Government. If you prepare a good report, it has tremendous impact.

> jigeesh.am@thehindu.co.in