All-party meet fails to break deadlock

The All-party meeting on Tuesday failed to break the logjam that has ground the Indian Parliament to a halt over the 2G scam.

According to reports, at the meeting of leaders of all parties, called by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, did not arrive any consensus over breaking the Parliament deadlock.

Leader of Opposition Sushma Swarak remained firm on her stand and said the Parliament will not function till the UPA government set up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to investigate the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

However, after the meeting, Meira Kumar told reporters: ?I am not disappointed. It is a process, sometimes these issues need time to be sorted out.?

Meanwhile, as the deadlock in the Parliament over the 2G scam persisted for all 13 working days of the Winter Session on Tuesday, non-NDA Opposition parties called on President Pratibha Patil to intervene and break the impasse.

Left and non-BJP parties met Patil on Tuesday and urged her to ?advise? the government to accept the Opposition?s demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into the 2G Spectrum scam.

?The President is the head of parliament, so we urged her to ask the government to accept the demand for a JPC,? Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury said after the meeting.

About 80 MPs of the CPI(M), CPI, Forward Bloc, TDP, AIADMK, JD(S), MDMK, BJD and RLD met Patil.

The MPs proceeded in a protest march to the Rashtrapati Bhawan and also submitted a memorandum to the President in this regard, after staging a protest inside the Parliament House and raising slogans for a JPC.

Yechury said the Opposition was persistent in its demand for the JPC as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which will look into the probe, does not enjoy powers as a JPC.

?On the basis of this probe, there is a need to work on a new regulation which only a JPC can do,? he said, terming the 2G scam the ?biggest corruption after Independence?.

Dismissing charges that the Opposition was not allowing the Parliament to function, Yechury said, ?We are not responsible for the Parliament not functioning. We want it to function but the Government should accept our demand for JPC.?

Earlier the day, both Houses of Parliament were adjourned for the 13th day of the Winter Session as the Opposition remained unrelenting in its demand for a JPC into the 2G scam, while the government refused to oblige.

A CAG report had held former Telecom Minister A Raja ?personally responsible? for costing the national exchequer a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore through ?illogical? sale of 2G telecom spectrum in 2008.