Parliament remained paralysed on Friday, for the sixth day running, and adjourned for Monday after pandemonium in both houses, even as the opposition got no word from the government on ending the impasse.

Instead, the Congress's prince charming and general secretary Rahul Gandhi and HRD and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal mounted defence of the prime minister, who is being blamed for allowing the 2G spectrum loot by the ally DMK's ministers Dayanidhi Maran and A Raja with the Supreme Court chiding him for inaction and silence.

"I don't think he is in an embarrassing position at all," Rahul Gandhi snapped back when asked to comment on the PM's situation after the Supreme Court's harsh comments.

PM RUES: Insiders said Sibal spoke out after the PM rued in the Congress core group meeting at his residence on Thursday that he did not get political support from eminent legal luminaries Sibal and home minister P Chidambaram holding high position. They could have guided the legal officers in handling the 2G case in the court appropriately, he said. Law minister M Veerappa Moily, who was not present in the meeting, also got brickbats for inapt handling.

The Supreme Court's comments on 11-month delay on the PM's part in not granting sanction to Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy to prosecute former telecom minister A Raja has come handy for the opposition to make conjectures that Manmohan Singh may also have a role in the matter.

The Congress initially ignored the opposition gunning for Manmohan Singh since Monday, but it is now concerned at the attempts to smear his clean image. The party has already taken the stand that the Supreme Court observation is not a stricture by any stretch of imagination, while the prime minister's office (PMO) said whatever is to be said would be said in the affidavit to the court sought by Saturday.

DUSTBIN: Sibal used his legal experience to blast Swamy for donning the role of the investigation officer and trying to secure sanction based on media reports and trying to paint the PM guilty.

Swamy knew he would be thrown out of court and his petition dumped into dustbin if he tried to make a case based on media reports and hence he sought to get a political mileage by writing letters to the PM, Sibal said.

The PM is sensitive who will not allow any wrongs in his government and that is why Raja, Shashi Tharoor and Ashok Chavan were made to resign, he said and challenged the BJP not allowing parliament to run if anybody in the BJP-led government resigned after the Tehelka expose.

Even before Rahul Gandhi and Sibal spoke out, Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi came out in full support of the PM on Thursday, saying the whole world knows he is a man of integrity and dignity and the party will stand by him through thick and thin.

SILENCE DEAFENING: The opposition is at a loss to find the government holding back from any counter offer to end the deadlock in parliament, pointing out it is the responsibility of the government to run parliament and its silence was deafening. 

The BJP and the CPI-M warned that the government cannot tire them by sitting tight on their demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe in the 2G scam and other scams.

Speaking on the sidelines of the CPI(M) central committee meeting here, its politburo member and MP Sitaram Yechuri said the party will not relent on the demand for a JPC on 2G, as "we are very clear that there is no other way out now particularly after the Supreme Court coming into the picture and trying to draw in the PM."

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had promised them after a failed luncheon meeting on Tuesday to get back to them Wednesday evening after talking to the PM, but there is no word from him since then. Instead, he appealed to the Opposition to allow parliament to function.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Canara Bank function here, he expressed anguish over parliament not allowed to transact its business and pointed out that "when I or the government oppose JPC, it is not that the matter should not be investigated."

ANTI-YEDDY POSTERS: While the BJP, AIADMK and Samajwadi Party members rushed into well of both the houses shouting "we want JPC," they were countered by the Congress members coming to the front of the aisle with posters of "Throw out most corrupt CM B S Yeddyurappa." Even former PM H D Deve Gowda rose in his seat, with a poster, in tandem with the Congress members.

BJP president Nitin Gadkari in Lucknow and other party leaders in Delhi continued to rule out removal of Yeddyurappa from the chief ministership, but party sources said he can be out any time as the party's core group felt its attack on the Manmohan Singh government will be blunted unless the CM is sacked for the alleged land scams.

The opposition is just not ready to buy the Congress leaders' and ministers' argument that the JPC is not necessary when the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by the BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi can go into the damning Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on an estimated Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss to the government in the 2G spectrum allocation in January 2008. Mukherjee even described PAC as a "permanent JPC" of parliament.

LAWYER CHANGE: Even the law ministry's decision to ask attorney general G E Vahanvati represent the PM in the Supreme Court attracted criticism.

Law minister Moily, however, asserted that it does not mean the government's another top law officer solicitor general Gopal Subramanium appearing in the case being sidelined or replaced for failing to prevent a court notice to the PMO on Thursday to file an affidavit.

Subramanium will continue to represent the Department of Telecom (DoT) in the hearings that resume on Tuesday while the AG will take care of the PM's representations, Moily said.

NOT SHUTTING PARLIAMENT: There was a lot of speculation in the parliament house over a media report that the government may opt to adjourn both the houses sine die instead of facing daily embarrassment of parliament remaining paralysed.

The Congress sources, however, said no discussion has taken place in the party to take such a drastic step. Instead of shutting parliament that sends a wrong message that the government is running away from investigations into corruption, the government may concede a JPG probe into 2G scam as a last resort, provided the opposition agrees to extend it to the NDA era from 1998 and stops demanding similar JPCs on the Commonwealth Games (CWG) and Adarsh Society scams.

Party spokesman Manish Tewari pointed out that the government is not running away from parliament by abandoning the session that remains deadlocked. "The government has said many times before we are ready to discuss all issues," he said.

ARM-TWISTING: Meanwhile, the DMK refuted the media reports of arm-twisting the PM on the spectrum pricing, asserting that it was very much the telecom minister's prerogative and nothing more be read into Raja and Dayanidhi Maran writing letters to him to allow a free hand in the spectrum allocation.

DMK leader TKS Elangovan defended his party's former telecom ministers, stating that no one dictated any terms to the PM as being tried to be made out by digging out some correspondence with him. Nothing wrong in ministers writing to the PM on their ministries' stand on issues under their domain, he said.