JPC to have 30 members

New Delhi: The government will announce a 30-member joint parliamentary panel with terms of reference expected to cover the period of the execution of the first-come first-served policy for telecom licences including the Opposition NDA’s term in office.
The committee is expected to submit a report in six months but official sources were doubtful if this might be sufficient. The announcement on the JPC, its membership and terms is to be made on Thursday afternoon when Lok Sabha begins discussing the 2G scam.
The proportional representation on the committee will see 22 Lok Sabha and 10 Rajya Sabha members. The Congress will have eight from LS and three from the upper House while the numbers for BJP will be four and two respectively.
BSP and JD(U) will have one member each from both Houses.
Larger parties like BJD, DMK and Trinamool Congress will have one member each from Lok Sabha even though no party apart from BJP and Congress has 27 MPs needed to claim a seat in the JPC. Since AIADMK, though lacking numbers, is to be accommodated, BJP will give one seat on the panel out of its quota to ally Shiv Sena.
The BJP is preparing to field former ministers Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh and Ravi Shankar Prasad along with S S Ahluwalia and Harin Pathak as its representatives on the parliamentary committee.
Congress sources said the party list is being finalised. Kerala MP P C Chacko is still tipped to chair the JPC, though a strong opinion in the party holds that someone less combative will better serve the purpose.
The Left will have two MPs on the JPC, one each from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
BJD has chosen Arjun Charan Sethi as its member. Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Banerjee will be the Trinamool Congress member of the panel. UPA ally NCP will have Y P Trivedi of Rajya Sabha as its only member. JD(U) will be represented by Sharad Yadav (LS) and R C P Singh (RS) while Samajwadi Party will have one member.
M Thambidurai, leader of AIADMK in Lok Sabha, is likely to represent the party. He met Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and NDA chairperson L K Advani on Wednesday to request that the principal opposition take up its case for a 30-member JPC. Both Advani and Swaraj conveyed these sentiments to the government and suggested that a bigger JPC be formed.