It dubbed the MDMA as an "eyewash that would only delay things further and demanded that it be consulted in the matter of appointment of a person to head the independent agency.

"Nothing short of this will be acceptable to us, Kapil Sibal, a leading advocate and Congress member from Bihar, said in the Rajya Sabha, opening the discussion on the Jain Commissions final report.

Although it made enough references to the alleged role of the DMK and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi in the case, the Congress fought shy of targeting them directly. Sibal's well-argued presentation was applauded by the ruling benches as well. "We don't want to raise the finger at anybody. We are concerned with the truth. Theres no political agenda here, he said.

The Congress through two of itsspeakers, Sibal and Suresh Pachouri, admitted that its own government at the Centre, headed by P V Narasimha Rao had delayed submission of certain vital documents to the Jain Commission. "This is unfortunate, Pachouri said, demanding that this angle needed to be thoroughly investigated and action taken against those responsible for the lapse.

Handicapped by the lack of sting in the commissions final report, to train its guns on the DMK, the Congress sought refuge in the interim report. The earlier report, Sibal noted, had talked of a political-bureaucratic nexus and said that the assassination could not have been possible but for the wanton negligence of the powers that-be.

"Is this not shocking? Shouldn't this be investigated? he asked, referring to the patronage that the LTTE allegedly received from the DMK government.

Turning to the final report, Sibal observed that the commission had called for a supplementary chargesheet to be filed against 21 suspects who did not figure among the 41 chargesheeted."If you look at the evidence before the commission, the activities of several other persons establish a much wider nexus than discovered so far, he said.

He further asked: "How can the government not reject the report and at the same time not proceed against these suspects? He demanded a categorical reply from the government as to whether it was accepting the final report in toto or not.

Sibal also attacked the government for entrusting the responsibility of deciding how to go about the investigation to the MDMA. "This is camouflage. The government does not want to go further into the matter, he remarked.

The BJP focussed more on the CIA-Mossad-LTTE link that the report talks of and said that this needed to be probed further, just as the role of Karunanidhi. Its main speaker, K R Malkani also targeted the then government headed by Narasimha Rao in whose regime certain files relating to the case were missing and others tampered with.

"A man is judged by the company he keeps. Mr Rao didn't haveexcellent company. His friendship with the two swamis (Chandraswamy and Subramanian Swamy) is public knowledge, he quipped.

While the DMK did not get a chance to speak today, the CPI(M)s Ramachandran Pillai did a competent job of dismissing the two reports of the commission. "This is a political document to serve political purposes, he said, dubbing some of the commissions conclusions as "preposterous.

At the end of the day, when the AIADMK's R Margabandhu rose to speak, there was a noisy exchange of words between the AIADMK and the DMK members. Margabandhu demanded that Karunanidhi be arrested and prosecuted on the basis of the commissions final report.