I have nothing to hide, ready to appear before PAC: PM

Under opposition onslaught for turning down the demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the 2G spectrum allocation scam, prime minister Manmohan Singh on Monday made an unprecedented offer to appear before Parliament’s public accounts committee (PAC) headed by senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi.

While the Congress described his move as a political “masterstroke” that is “brave and extraordinary”, the BJP and Left parties were dismissive of it.

“Like Caesar’s wife, the prime minister must be above suspicion,” Singh said, addressing the Congress plenary on its concluding day. “As prime minister of this great country for the last six-and-a-half years, I may have made mistakes, but I have tried to serve my country to the best of my ability,’’ he added.

He said the BJP has been falsely propagating that the UPA government is against the JPC because it does not want the prime minister to be questioned by a parliamentary committee, thereby implying that he has something to hide, he said.

“I wish to categorically state that I have nothing to hide from the public at large and as proof of my bona fides, I intend to write to the chairman of the PAC that I shall be happy to appear before the committee if it chooses to ask me,” he added. According to him, no purpose would be served by a JPC, “except to delay the inquiry and politicise the matter’.’

Singh’s offer came through a departure from his prepared speech and is seen as a personal attempt to disentangle himself from the spectrum controversy and ensure his clean public image. The move, according to sources, took even the party president by surprise.

He promised that nobody found guilty in 2G allocation as well as CWG (Commonwealth Games) irregularities would be spared.

“My promise to you that no guilty person will be spared - whether he is a political leader or a government official, whichever party he may belong to and howsoever powerful he may be,” he said.

 Congress president Sonia Gandhi backed his stand on corruption, saying, “we will take corruption head on and demonstrate it through actions not through words alone’’.

Lauding the prime minister’s move as “courageous”, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh asked: “Why can’t the BJP trust a PAC chaired by its own leader? They may have their internal differences, but they should not run down a body that is sanctified by the constitution.”

The opposition parties, however, were not impressed with the prime minister’s offer. They said the PAC has a limited mandate while the JPC has a broader mandate and unlimited powers to probe matters of policy unlike the PAC.

“If he believes that he or his government has not done anything wrong, then why is he getting into this PAC vs JPC debate? JPC is a parliamentary committee and it is its mandate to probe,” senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley told reporters. He maintained that the prime minister could not choose the forum of his inquiry.

Jaitley insisted that the prime minister is “personally liable” for the appointment of PJ Thomas as the CVC and subversion of the CBI.

CPM leader Sita Ram Yechury said the “need for a JPC is felt when you are in opposition and rubbished when you are in government. That doesn’t make it a mature response to what the opposition has been demanding,” he added.
— With PTI inputs