The Hindu : National : Expand panel, BJP urges Speaker

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National

Expand panel, BJP urges Speaker

Special Correspondent

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha V.K. Malhotra on Thursday met Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and requested him to expand the parliamentary committee on the cash-for-votes scandal.

Mr. Malhotra told The Hindu that the Speaker pointed out that a parliamentary panel which earlier looked into the cash-for-questions scandal had only five members. Now, he set up a seven-member committee, with one member from each of the largest political parties in the House.

While promising to cooperate with the Kishore Chandra Deo committee, Mr. Malhotra said he would give his request in writing to the Speaker on Friday. Mr. Chatterjee had assured him he would look into it.

‘One entity’

Mr. Malhotra said the BJP’s allies in the National democratic Alliance should be looked at not as four separate parties but as “one entity” comprising 39 Lok Sabha members. Therefore, the NDA deserved to have one more representative on the committee.

The seven parties now represented on it are the Congress, the BJP, the CPI(M), the Samajwadi Party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Bahujan Samaj Party.

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