Mamata Banerjee assures support to Govt. :2G scam

KOLKATA: Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday assured her full support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre over the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

Banerjee said that she had no objection over the debate in the Parliament over the 2G spectrum controversy.

"If there are questions about functioning about the government, then there should be discussions in the Parliament about the same. We do not have problems and we want discussions for that. We were always with the Prime Minister, we are with the Prime Minister and we will be with the Prime Minister," Mamata Banerjee told reporters here today.

"There is nothing new to say about it. I think we are first party who went to meet the Prime Minister and extended our full support for him. Even Pranab Da (Pranab Mukherjee) said that there should be discussion on the whole issue. So, today's meeting was all about that," she added after meeting Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee at his residence here.

Pranab Mukherjee said Mamata Banerjee has extended her full support to the Government on the whole fiasco over the telecom scam in the Parliament, adding that she is ready to support Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in whatever decision he takes.

"Discussions are required on the whole fiasco happening in the Parliament. For the same, I requested her to meet and she came forward for that and listened to me. We discussed the current situation in the Parliament," he added.

Earlier on Friday, Pranab Mukherjee appealed to all political parties to help end the deadlock over the 2G spectrum allocation scam, saying the matter could be looked into by the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament.

The 2G spectrum allocation has reportedly caused an alleged loss of Rs1.76 lakh crores to the Government, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has stated in a damning report.

The report further states that former Telecom Minister A. Raja had no apparent logical or valid reasons to ignore the advice of the Law and Finance Ministries while allocating telecom spectrum to several firms in 2007-08.