Premier was consulted on 2G allocation: Raja

IANS/New Delhi

Former telecommunications minister A Raja yesterday targeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the 2G spectrum allocation claiming everything was done in consultation with him.

Raja’s reaction came a day after the draft report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probing the issue blamed the former telecommunications minister but cleared Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram of any wrongdoing.

“I did everything in consultation with the prime minister,” said Raja of the DMK (Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam), a former United Progressive Alliance (UPA) member, in Chennai.

“I will send a note to the JPC. I hope they will call me.”

Raja had written to JPC chief P C Chacko seeking to depose before the committee but his request was turned down.

Even as the opposition criticised the draft JPC report as biased, Chacko said it was based on facts.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the report appeared to be a Congress document and termed its leak to the media as a “gross breach of parliamentary propriety”.

“The draft report of the JPC on 2G issue has been widely reported in the media. This is a gross breach of well-settled parliamentary propriety where any report/draft is debated, discussed, amendments are moved in the formal meeting and thereafter a view is taken,” said BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“Going by the contents of the report in the media, I can only say the 2G scam was one of the biggest scams in the history of independent India, which shamed the country,” he said.

Added D Raja of the Communist Party of India (CPI): “The report is not acceptable to us. It is prejudged and prejudiced, covering facts and trying to save a few people and blaming one individual.”

Sensing the opposition is likely to take up the issue in parliament, Congress president Sonia Gandhi reviewed the party’s strategy with senior leaders. The draft report was circulated among the members of the JPC on Thursday. The panel will meet on April 25 to finalise it.

DMK’s Raja also sought the permission of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to depose before the JPC but was allowed only to submit his views in writing.