I wanted to bring revolution in telecom, they called me criminal: A Raja

Putting the onus for the 2G scam on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Former Telecom minister and the DMK candidate from Nilgiris A Raja says the 2G scam was ‘a corporate conspiracy’. In an interview to CNN-IBN, Raja said that he was only following the PM and the FM’s advice. Raja said he wanted to bring revolution in the telecom sector but was named a criminal. “I am the first person to resist the corruption. A man who wanted to bring revolution in the telecom sector is being named a criminal. This not corruption, this is a revolution,” he said. Raja said that the CBI has been unable to find evidence against him and he hopes the trial ends in his favour. Defending his candidature in the Lok Sabha elections, Raja said, “I am confident I will get justice from the trial court. That is why I am contesting the elections to remove the political stigma in the public life.” [caption id=“attachment_1219547” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Former telecom minister A Raja.[/caption] According to Raja, the entire issue of 2G has been motivated by the cartel forces. “They (The existing operators) wanted to maintain the cartel, they wanted to maintain the monopoly in the sector,” he said. Raja explained that the basic principle of the National Telecom Policy 1999 is to inject more competition, so as to bring the tariff down. “When I assumed charge as a minister, TRAI recommendation came to me that you should inject competition. I wanted to inject competition as per NTP 99. It is not at all acceptable to the cartel forces, so they sent an unsigned note in which they listed out suggestions that suited them,” he said. The former telecom minister said that it is unfortunate that the Prime Minister signed the letter without knowing whether the suggestions were legitimate. Raja also said that the spectrum allocation was not defended in the Parliament or the Supreme Court. “Everybody including Kapil Sibal and the Prime Minister admitted that to maintain the level playing field, spectrum cannot be auctioned. This is the policy. But it was not properly addressed to the Supreme Court,” he said. “So you are maintaining silence, then you wake up, then you file a presidential reference in the SC. By then Raja was inside the jail,” he said. He said that the both the Planning Commission and Trai say that spectrum should not be treated as a revenue source. “National Telecom Policy which was designed by Cabinet and approved in Parliament says don’t auction spectrum. Suddenly, CAG says had it been auctioned 1 lakh 76 crore would have been accrued to the government. So between institutional aberrations I have been put into trouble,” he said. On being asked why he ignored PM and FM’s advice on the spectrum allocation, Raja said, “Both are wrong. They cannot give advice as against the document. As a minister, I took oath on the Constitution and I cannot go beyond the document.” Attacking Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, Raja said, “I think she is the only political leader who denied her own signature in the court of law. She is facing a trial for 18 years and she is dilly dallying. So she has no moral and legal right to comment on me.” He said that the DMK will have a substantial number of seats in the Lok Sabha. “Anti-popular government is in the state. Secular forces must have a seat in the centre. This is the main agenda. Definitely we will have substantial number of seats in the state,” he said. Read the full interview here.