If Sri Lanka became the flashpoint of the first half of the Budget session, the Joint Parliamentary Committee report on the 2G spectrum allocation policy could well become the next. The DMK not only provides the subterranean connect between the two issues, but many in Delhi’s power circles believe that the strain in the Congress-DMK relations over the second, led to the rupture of the alliance over the first—on which the Dravidian party refused to relent. JPC chairman P.C. Chacko’s refusal to allow former telecom minister A. Raja to personally appear before the panel—which would have given him an opportunity to put his side across on parliamentary record—has been a major point of friction between the two parties..
“Raja is behind the breakdown’’ says a senior Congress Minister, even though sibling rivalry between Stalin and Alagiri is touted as the obvious reason. A day before the party enacted the late night break-up drama on the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan on March 19 (for which T.R. Baalu rushed from Chennai to New Delhi taking the Congress interlocutors by surprise), Chacko received a second letter from Raja. He gave a written deposition on some of the contentious issues on allotting second generation spectrum allocation. He reiterated his demand to be allowed to appear before the JPC.
In this latest letter, which reached Chacko on March 18, Raja explains his position vis-à-vis the spectrum allocation policy during his tenure as Telecom Minister. He has rebutted Attorney General G.Vahanvati’s comment before the JPC. The A-G, in his disposition before JPC on February 5, said Raja had altered the press note approved by him. Vahanvati had also alleged that Raja had belied his trust by deleting one paragraph in the press release, issued in 2008, which led to the qualitative change in the selection process, done through first-cum-first-serve basis.
The Sunday Standard