The all-party meeting in Parliament on the telecom scam on Monday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, Nov. 22: The government was struggling tonight to finalise its response to the united Opposition’s demand for a joint parliamentary committee on the 2G spectrum scandal, an issue that continued to paralyse both Houses of Parliament today.

No work has been done so far in the winter session, which began on November 9.

Pranab Mukherjee, the leader of the Lok Sabha, has promised to get back to the Opposition after discussing their demand with the Prime Minister, who was expected to return to Delhi in the evening after attending a convocation in Andhra Pradesh.

Mukherjee today discussed the issue of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) with fellow senior ministers A.K. Antony and P. Chidambaram.

The next step from the government could be the offer of a JPC to examine telecom policies since 1998, which covers the tenure of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance too. This offer was not made at this afternoon’s all-party meeting since the Centre considers a JPC the last option.

Although the leaders of many Opposition parties today said they wanted Parliament to resume functioning, they all rallied behind an uncompromising BJP on the JPC demand.

The Opposition spurned the government’s offer to add investigative teeth to the public accounts committee (PAC) that will look into the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the spectrum controversy.

At the all-party meeting, Mukherjee had proposed to attach a multi-disciplinary probe team to the PAC, which is headed by BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, enabling it to investigate any aspect of the CAG findings.

Agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI as well as the income-tax department could have assisted the PAC under this arrangement. But the Opposition would not settle for anything less than a JPC.

The government feels there is no need for a joint parliamentary committee as the public accounts committee too is a parliamentary body and because the CBI is already looking into the whole issue.

But the Opposition argued that a PAC did not have the freedom and ambit of a JPC, which can summon anybody, including the Prime Minister, for questioning.

CPI leader Gurdas Dasgupta declared the Opposition’s intent of calling Manmohan Singh for questioning. He said after the meeting: “It should not be a problem for Manmohan. He had been questioned by the JPC earlier in the Harshad Mehta scam (in the 1990s, when Singh was finance minister). The charge against him is similar.

“Then we had accused him of failing to rein in Harshad Mehta and now we have accused him of failing to rein in A. Raja. He took the lead that time in accepting the JPC; he should do the same now.”

The Opposition leaders also demanded a probe into a corporate lobbyist’s reported conversations with some journalists. BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who raised the matter, said: “As the tapes have exposed, the corporate lobbyists decide who should be the minister and the allocation of portfolios. Then they decide what the policy should be and how to go about it.”

The Opposition warned the government not to even think of shutting down the winter session as the protest would then spill over to the budget session.

Even the UPA allies showed signs of restlessness, saying the government should ensure normality in Parliament and that they had no problem with a JPC probe.