Congress, DMK demand resignation of PAC chairman

Congress and DMK members of the panel on Wednesday accused MM Joshi of having "malafide intention" of destabilising the government and demanded his resignation.Soon after the draft report leaked, members of Congress and DMK went into a huddle and made it clear that they would not allow the adoption of the report in tomorrow's meeting.

They said that they had got no time to study thoroughly the voluminous report of 280-odd pages and would like to study it properly besides calling more key witnesses like former Telecom Minister A Raja before the committee.Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Congress members KS Rao, Saifuddin Soz and Navin Jindal and DMK member T Siva attacked PAC chief for "hurriedly" pushing the report for "political mileage".

Alleging that Joshi had wanted to "destabilise" and "defame the cabinet and government", Rao said the draft report seems to have been prepared in a "pre-determined manner with biased mind and malafide intention."

He said that members had no idea that tomorrow's meeting was to discuss the report and were "shocked" to learn about it through the media."We did not know Joshi was in hurry to present report by April 30," Rao said.Apprehending that Joshi might table the report in Parliament without views of members of ruling party, he demanded resignation of Joshi as head of PAC.Contending that Joshi would throughout the meetings force the witnesses to toe a particular line and even "put words" in their mouth, Rao said, "We all are for unanimous report.

But why is he in a hurry? What is the intention? Do we have to say everything that the chairman says? Jindal alleged several things mentioned in report are wrong and they would raise these issues one by one in tomorrow's meeting.

The meeting on April 16 did not take place and so the evidence of Principal Secretary to Prime Minister TKA Nair and Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekar could not appear but the report states that they had appeared, Jindal said adding that it suggests that the report has been prepared before April 15.

The Congress and DMK members said they had wanted Raja to appear before the committee as per the principle of natural justice as he was the main accused but the chairman rejected it.