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National

Advani's call to join NDA campaign against corruption

Neena Vyas

L.K. Advani

NEW DELHI: BJP parliamentary party chairman L.K. Advani on Thursday announced a public campaign against corruption but he dismissed charges of nepotism and corruption against Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa saying: “I am concerned, we are already dealing with it … our party spokesperson has already answered questions [in this regard].”

Sitting next to National Democratic Alliance convener Sharad Yadav and leaders of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley at a press conference, Mr. Advani said here that all NDA parties would jointly organise a “series of rallies” in major cities to focus on corruption and “all Opposition parties are invited.” No dates were given.

Although the Left has taken the lead in putting together a group of non-Congress and non-BJP parties on this very issue — they submitted a memorandum to the President a couple of days ago — the BJP's effort is to bring on the NDA platform some parties which are not part of the alliance.

Mr. Advani went through the gamut of issues in the 2G spectrum scandal: the Comptroller and Auditor-General's report that spoke of a huge potential loss to the exchequer in the award of telecom licences and allocation of spectrum; the appointment of a charge-sheeted Chief Vigilance Commissioner, who has now recused himself from the probe as he was the Telecom Secretary at the time of spectrum allocation; and the latest Radia tapes that revealed the functioning of lobbyists, on behalf of powerful business houses, in trying to fix a Cabinet position for a particular person.

Mr. Advani pointed out that although the Public Accounts Committee would, no doubt, look at the CAG report in detail, it was not equipped to probe the dangerous dimensions of the scandal that emerged from the Radia tapes. The Joint Parliamentary Committee, demanded by the Opposition, was the right body to go into all these aspects.

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