The Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, are meeting in Delhi on Thursday to hold a strategy session in the backdrop of an united Opposition's demand for a joint parliamentary committee probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
The meeting of the Congress Core Group is being held amid a deadlock over the issue in the Winter Session of Parliament, which started last week. The opposition is now attacking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the wake of the Supreme Court's observation on Dr Singh's 'silence' on the spectrum scam and wants an explanation from him.
The Supreme Court has posed some embarrassing questions to the government about the lengthy delay on the part of the prime minister in taking a decision on a plea for sanction of prosecution of former telecom minister A Raja in the controversial 2G spectrum allocation issue.
The 2G spectrum allocation scandal, being dubbed by the Opposition as the biggest one since Independence, has refused to die down even after the resignation of Raja.
A luncheon meeting convened by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee failed to end the stalemate in Parliament over the demand for a JPC into the spectrum issue.
The BJP wants the JPC to probe the 2G scam, the Adarsh housing scam and corruption in Commonwealth Games. The government is insisting that the Public Accounts Committee can find out the truth in the matter and a JPC probe will be out of place.
The Congress has maintained that it was 'wrong and unfair' to say that the prime minister has not taken action and pointed out that he had secured the resignation of Raja.
The party's defence of the prime minister came as the Opposition launched a broadside, asking him to explain in Parliament how this 'murky affair' was allowed to go on for so long.
