2G: Jayanthi Natarajan named JPC member

Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan was named a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee into the 2G spectrum scam after her colleague Abhishek Singhvi recused himself taking the plea that he had appeared for cellular operators in the court as a senior advocate.

The announcement about Natarajan's inclusion was made by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal who moved the motion for formation of the JPC in the Rajya Sabha.

A former minister, Natarajan is an advocate and is the Congress spokesperson for a number of years. Singhvi, earlier recused himself from the JPC, saying "I had appeared as a senior advocate in the court for cellular operators and had attacked the telecom policies from 2002 to 2004 when Pramod Mahajan, Arun Shourie and Ram Vilas Paswan were telecom ministers (in the National Democratic Alliance government)."

Singhvi is also a Congress spokesperson. Other members whose names are proposed are P J Kurien and Praveen Rashtrapal from the Congress, Sitaram Yechury of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Tiruchi Shiva from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, S S Ahluwalia and Ravi Shankar Prasad from the BJP, Y P Trivedi from the Nationalist Congress Party, Satish Chandra Mishra from the Bahujan Samaj Party and Ramchandra Prasad Singh from Janta Dal United.