PM knew about 2G decisions: Raja

Ex-telecom minister says Pranab, PC were aware

Even as the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, former telecom minister A Raja on Monday fired a fresh salvo saying every major decision,  including on entry fee and non-auction of spectrum, was taken after consulting the top two.

Raja was indicted in the draft JPC report prepared by its chairman P C Chacko. Raja said in his 100-page statement submitted to Chacko: “I took no unilateral decisions.

Every major decision of mine was taken after consultation, first with the DoT officers and thereafter with the PM, FM and EAM (then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who was heading a GoM on vacation of spectrum). All issues, including entry fee, non-auction of spectrum, FCFS (first-come-first-served), processing of applications till September 25, 2007, were personally discussed by me with the PM and DoT proceeded only thereafter,” .

The JPC, which refused Raja an opportunity to appear before it, in its draft report had blamed him for the 2G scam saying that the former telecom minister misled the prime minister on decisions in respect of allocation of radio waves in 2008.

In a point by point rebuttal, Raja demanded the recording of his statement as well as that of prime minister before reaching conclusions.

The former minister’s statement is likely to cause huge embarrassment to the government as Opposition parties have demanded rejection of the draft report and removal of its chairman Chacko. 

“Since it has often been alleged that I ‘misled’ the prime minister, I wish to deal with this issue here. I would first of all point out that this allegation has been made by the CBI, without even recording the statement of the prime minister. On what basis do they say that he was misled? I do hope that the JPC will not commit the same blunder: if they wish to draw any conclusions, it is mandatory to record both my statement and the statement of the prime minister," Raja said.

Raja also said that if the prime minister tells Parliament that there was no loss to the exchequer, then how can the government “watch silently” when the CBI prosecutes him for allegedly causing loss to the exchequer.