2G scam: NDA goes all-out against PM, demands resignation on JPC issue

NEW DELHI: Targeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the corruption issue, the BJP-led NDA today demanded that he should resign if he does not want a JPC on the 2G spectrum scam and answer charges before it.

"The Prime Minister should form the JPC and answer our questions and if you (PM) cannot answer our questions, then you should step down from your post on moral grounds," Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said in his address at an NDA rally here against corruption.

The BJP and its NDA partners directed their fire towards the Prime Minister, saying his offer to appear before the Public Accounts Committee was not enough and the government should agree to a JPC probe into the 2G spectrum scam.

"It has never happened that the Prime Minister would have to say that he has nothing to hide. That he would not go to a JPC but can depose before a PAC," Jaitley said.

Challenging the Prime Minister to depose before a JPC, NDA working President L K Advani said, "In India's history, the Supreme Court has perhaps never asked the PM to give an affidavit in a case.

He said the "campaign against corruption was in a way a campaign against the Prime Minister. He should come before the JPC and say whatever he wants to say."

Addressing the rally, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said, "Government is not giving in to the demand for a JPC as it fears that this issue will be kept alive."

Holding that the Prime Minister cannot shake off his responsibility on the issue of corruption, she said, "If corruption is happening under your nose and you are not doing anything, then you are a participant in it."

Swaraj said she had only one question for the Prime Minister and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. "Madam, why no JPC? Mr Prime Minister, why no JPC?"

BJP President Nitin Gadkari attacked the government on alleged corruption in Commonwealth Games projects and said when the budget for the games was "inflated", the sanctions were given by the Finance Minister, Group of Ministers, Cabinet and the Prime Minister.

"The Congress ministers have been involved in corruption and so the party has no right to talk about taking strict action against corruption," he said.