Mukherjee Seeks to `Soften Mood' in Political Standoff Over Telecom Probe

India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee offered to hold a special session of parliament to debate opposition demands for a cross-party probe of the 2008 sale of phone licenses, seeking to end a political standoff before a crucial budget vote early next year.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance wants a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate alleged impropriety after the nation’s chief auditor reported last month that the auction of airwaves may have cost the exchequer $31 billion. The opposition parties organized a rally in New Delhi yesterday to “expose widespread corruption” in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress-led government.

“If they assure that there will be a debate, I’m ready to call a special session of parliament before the budget session so that this issue is debated,” Mukherjee said at a function in the capital yesterday.

The nation’s parliament saw 22 consecutive days of gridlock, with only four bills passed of the 36 planned, during its winter session that ended Dec. 13, making it the least productive in at least 25 years. Singh needs to resolve the impasse and seek opposition support for his government’s tax proposals and spending plans to be presented by Mukherjee in the budget session late February, and also to pass pending bills.

Mukherjee’s comments are “an olive leaf to the opposition to allow the budget” to get passed, said N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the Centre for Media Studies in New Delhi. “Before the start of the budget session in February, the government wants to soften the mood of the opposition.”

Answer or Quit

BJP leader Arun Jaitley yesterday told supporters that Singh must resign if he can’t answer queries on the phone permits. “The government can’t run in an atmosphere of suspicion.” The party will cooperate only if Singh meets its demands, spokesman Prakash Javadekar, said today.

The biggest crisis of Singh’s second term intensified after the publication of a Nov. 16 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India that the award of mobile-phone licenses at below-market prices. The CAG said local units of companies including Telenor ASA and Emirates Telecommunications Corp. suppressed facts and submitted fictitious documents to win permits.

Two days earlier, Telecommunications Minister Andimuthu Raja had resigned from Singh’s cabinet, denying any wrongdoing.

Singh told his party workers on Dec. 20 that he would punish anyone found guilty in multiple probes into the alleged scam and he offered to face the Public Accounts Committee, a panel of lawmakers examining the auditor’s auction report.