Trinamool suspense on JPC deepens as leader requests Chacko to postpone meeting

NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee and a member of JPC on spectrum allocation has written to the committee chief PC Chacko requesting for the panel's meeting scheduled for Thursday to be postponed, raising questions about whose side his party will take on the controversial issue.

Banerjee, the lone member in the panel representing the Trinamool that has been linked to the raging chit fund scandal in the state, has written to Chacko saying "it will be inconvenient" for him to be present in New Delhi for Thursday's meeting and "therefore requesting the postponement of the JPC meet".

Chacko has declined the last minute request. When contacted by ET, Banerjee declined to speak about the JPC. Asked whether he would attend Thursday's meeting, he said: "I am in Kolkata now. Let me see. I can't say anything now."

However, his letter coincides with the chit fund scandal in West Bengal, which threatens to drag his party's government into its first major financial and political scandal as two of its MPs are said to have linked with the company at the centre of the scam. Rival parties such as the Congress and the Left have already demanded a CBI probe into the scam.

The seemingly ambivalent comments from a member of a party, which had a bitter falling out with the Congress-led UPA last year and has spared no opportunity to criticise the government since, could raise the suspense on Trinamool stance on the draft report of JPC whose conclusions are bitterly contested by opposition members of the panel.

The draft report, leaked last week, appeared to exonerate the PM and the FM while putting the blame on ex-telecom minister A Raja, conclusions that are unacceptable to the opposition.

The 30-member JPC appears to be divided pretty much down the middle, making members such as Banerjee crucial in the event of any voting. Getting a wind of Banerjee's letter to the JPC chairman, opposition members tried to persuade him to attend a joint Opposition strategy meet on Thursday, ahead of the JPC sitting.