The government conceded the opposition demand for having 30 members in the JPC to probe the 2G spectrum issue, giving up its earlier plan for a 21-member panel to accommodate smaller parties like AIADMK, sources said.

AIADMK MP M Thambidurai met Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and NDA Working Chairperson L K Advani today to request that the principal opposition also take up its case for a 30-member Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

Both Advani and Swaraj conveyed these sentiments to the government and suggested that a bigger JPC be formed.

"Even Parliamentary Standing Committee - which are considered mini-JPCs - have 30 members. Moreover, the earlier three JPCs on corruption have had 30 members," Swaraj told reporters.

The government sources said, "We have decided to have a 30-member panel to accommodate smaller parties which could not have been represented in a 21-member JPC."

20 members of the JPC will be from the Lok Sabha while 10 will be from the Rajya Sabha. The seats given to each party are based on its strength in the two Houses. In a 30 member JPC, 38 members in the House entitle a party to one seat in the panel.

Congress will have eight members in the Committee from the Lower House and three from the Upper House.

BJP will have four members from the Lok Sabha in the committee, one of which it will give to ally Shiv Sena which is not getting any representation. The main opposition will also have two members from the Upper House.

The DMK will have two members and AIADMK will have one member in the panel.

Deputy Leader of BJP in Rajya Sabha S S Ahluwalia is likely to be a member of the JPC, party sources said. The party maintained it has not finalised the names yet.

Though the Motion for formation of JPC is not listed in tomorrow's business in the Lok Sabha, sources said the government will list it as a supplementary.

The Motion will be moved by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal at 2 PM in the Lok Sabha. This will be followed by a four-hour discussion on the issue.

Sources said though the government is in favour of setting the start of the Monsoon Session as the deadline for the JPC to submit its report, the opposition is likely to demand that "within a reasonable time" be stated instead.

Congress MP P C Chacko is still the front-runner for the post of JPC chairperson.

Congress allys NCP and Trinamool Congress will have one member each on the panel. BSP, JD(U) and Left parties will have two each while SP and BJD will have one each.

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Congress, BJP continue to spar over JPC

The government will press on Thursday to cover all telecom decisions and policies right from 1998 when the BJP-led NDA was in power as terms of reference of the proposed Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the 2G scam.

The main opposition Bhartiya Janata Party, however, smells a trick in the move to keep out all its senior leaders from joining the JPC, be it Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Ananth Kumar, Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi or Shahnawaz Hussain.

Each one of these seniors have been the cabinet ministers during the NDA regime and have been party, directly or indirectly, to the decisions taken by the then government and so they cannot sit in judgement on own role under the principle of conflict of interest.

Since the JPC will be probing into even the cabinet decisions, the BJP seniors who were part of the cabinet cannot become members of the JPC. This will force the BJP to field its second rung leaders to become members of the JPC, a top party leader said.

On the other hand, the Congress has also plunged into a crisis on deciding names of its MPs to be put on the JPC. Anyone who joins the JPC will lose the chance to join the union ministry in the reshuffle the prime minister has promised in May after the Parliament session and hence there are no takers for a berth on the JPC, Congress sources said.

Those reluctant to be on the JPC include all three senior party MPs, V Kishore Chandra Deo (Andhra), P C Chacko (Kerala) and Girija Vyas (Rajasthan), who are the probables shortlisted for heading it as each one of them is quite hopeful of becoming a cabinet minister. They feel that their chance will be spoiled if they join the probe committee as they will have to then wait out until the committee finishes its report.

There is still no clarity from the government's side on the number of members of the JPC, whether there will be 21 or 31. If it is 21, the Lok Sabha will have 14 members and the Rajya Sabha seven. If it is 31, the Lok Sabha will get 21, including that of the chairman, and the Rajya Sabha ten.

Once the Lok Sabha adopts a government-sponsored resolution for setting up the JPC, it will go to the Rajya Sabha to elect its members to be placed on it. The final decision of the names and the terms of reference will be decided together by speaker Meira Kumar and Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari.