In an embarrassment to Congress, UPA ally NCP has broken ranks with it by supporting the opposition’s demand to call former telecom minister A Raja as a witness before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G spectrum scam.
The sole NCP representative in the JPC, YP Trivedi, has written to panel chief PC Chacko demanding that Raja be given a chance to present his case, sources in the panel said on Saturday.
While Congress has persistently stonewalled Raja’s repeated requests to depose before the JPC, his party DMK, BJP, the Left and others, including UPA’s outside supporter Samajwadi Party, have been demanding his deposition.
They have maintained that it is only fair that the principal accused in the draft report is given a chance to present his case.
It is learnt that Trivedi had on an earlier occasion also demanded calling Raja as a witness. Chacko had informed him that since Raja has already made his case before the committee through a written submission, there was no need to call him personally.
In the light of fresh development, the 27 September meeting is set to be stormy as it has to adopt the controversial draft report which gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram, but had indicted former Telecom Minister A Raja for the 2G scam.
Battle lines have been drawn for the meeting as BJP and Left members are all set to oppose the draft report by either giving strong notes of dissent or demanding a vote.