Parliament session resumes, scams back in highlight

The Opposition is all set to corner the government in Parliament on Monday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other parties deciding to raise the "deliberate leak" of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) draft report on the 2G scam and the reported vetting by the law ministry of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) report on coalgate.

Political temperatures are high with former Telecom Minister A Raja claiming that all decisions on the 2G spectrum issue were taken in consultation with the Prime Minister and BJP accusing JPC Chairman P C Chacko of trying to save the government.

Raja is the main accused in the scam and had sought an opportunity to depose before JPC, which was denied. Raja is from DMK, which parted ways with UPA recently.

A political storm has already broken out with an agitated Opposition alleging that the report on 2G is a "cover up" and has been prepared to give a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

The Opposition has been maintaining that the "deliberate leak" amounted to breach of parliamentary privilege and is seeking a probe into it.

NDA is angry over the draft JPC report on 2G scam, particularly the references to the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and some other ministers in his government.

The issue of alleged interference by the government in the preparation of the CBI report on coal block allocation scam for the Supreme Court is another major issue on which the Left and the Right have made a common cause.

BJP has been demanding resignation of Law Minister Ashwani Kumar in the wake of reports that he had summoned the CBI chief after which the report on the scam was "toned down".

Congress has rejected the charge of interference and has ruled out resignation of the law minister.

This might come in the way of passage of some key bills that UPA is hoping to push through during the remaining part of the session, scheduled to end on May 10.

Though the government just succeeded in getting BJP's support for the Land Acquisition Bill, which has been hanging for the past six years, Left parties are opposed to it.

With inputs from PTI