Joshi was playing games with PAC members: Congress

Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari hit out at Public Accounts Committee chairman Dr Murli Manohar Joshi on Friday, for not taking the members of the committee in confidence before the scheduled meeting on Thursday, and for trying to push his report.

"Joshi was playing games with the PAC members. But it backfired," he said.

He said that Joshi had emailed the 271-page report with 64 additional documents to the members on Wednesday night. Did he really expect the members to go through them in such a short time and come prepared to the meeting to share their point of view?" he said.

He made allegations against the prime minister and the union home minister for engineering the disruption of the meeting. The Congress, Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam, Samajvadi party and the Bahujan Samaj Party members opposed his move.

Answering a question as to how Saifuddin Soz was elected chairman of the committee after Joshi called off the meeting, Tewari said other members who are not part of the Bharatiya Janata party decided to elect Soz as chairman for the day so that the proceedings could go unhampered.

"There was nothing wrong in electing Soz as chairman of the day. He put the draft report to vote, and a majority of the PAC members voted against it. 

Will Joshi continue as the chairman? "It's for him to decide whether he wants to resign or continue in office after this fiasco. The BJP has already renominated him for another term. So till he decides to resign, he would continue to be chairman of PAC. It is up to the speaker whether she rejects Joshi's report or accepts it," he added.