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Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
The stalemate between the government and the Congress over the Tehelka expose was broken on Monday evening with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee assuring Congress president Sonia Gandhi that he had an "open mind" on setting up a joint parliamentary committee on the subject.
According to Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan, the deadlock was broken at a meeting summoned by Lok Sabha Speaker G M C Balayogi to end the deadlock caused by the government's earlier stand that it would not constitute a JPC.
The Congress maintained that setting up of a JPC was necessary for the smooth functioning of Parliament, whose proceedings the party has been stalling since the Tehelka scandal broke out.
The end of the stalemate was a victory of sorts for the Congress and Gandhi since the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government has been forced to climb down from its earlier rigid stance.
Even at the BJP's briefing on Monday, party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra lashed out at the Congress which forced adjournment of the Lok Sabha for the day over the same issue.
Malhotra underscored that the government had already rejected the demand for a JPC and the Congress could not always have its way.
Gandhi told reporters after the meeting with Vajpayee, to which she was accompanied by senior party leaders Madhavrao Scindia and Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, that her party had agreed to allow Parliament to function following his assurance that he had an open mind on setting up a JPC.
She said that once the Finance Bill had been passed in the Lok Sabha, the Congress would again raise its demand for a JPC on the Tehelka scandal.
"The only thing I can say at this juncture is that we have extracted our demand for the JPC, which the prime minister has virtually agreed to by saying that his government has an open mind on it. That's what matters," Dasmunshi told rediff.com
EARLIER REPORT Govt open to JPC on Tehelka: Vajpayee
RELATED REPORT Tehelka names Samata leader who took money
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