BJP asks PM to break silence on 2G scam
By IANSThursday, May 20, 2010
NEW DELHI - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday questioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s silence on Union Communications Minister A. Raja’s alleged acts of “corruption and nepotism” in the 2G spectrum scam after the successful bidding of the 3G spectrum fetched a whopping Rs.67,710 crore.
BJP national spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman in a statement said: “The loss caused to this country by A. Raja through his acts of corruption and nepotism is huge… at a time when the fiscal deficit of the government of India is a record high.”
Claiming that the 2G scam “will continue to remain a discussion-worthy point”, she said that it is a concern that the 3G spectrum earned Rs.67,710 crore and the 2G spectrum was allotted at a “throw away price” of Rs.1,651 crore for an all-India licence.
“How long will the prime minister look the other way and pretend that nothing has happened,” asked Sitharaman.
Attacking Raja’s argument of comparing the two spectrums to Public Distribution System (PDS) and basmati rice, Sitharaman said: “The argument of the telecom minister that ‘the difference between 2G and 3G spectrum is a difference between PDS rice and the Basmati rice’ is astonishing.
“The PDS rice is distributed to the economically deprived while the 2G spectrum was allotted to Reliance Communications, Airtel, Vodafone, Swan Telecom, Videocon, Unitech etc,” she added.
