PM seeks to blame Raja for 2G fiasco
PTI
NEW DELHI, FEB 24
Declaring that government will do everything to clean up the “public life”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said no wrong-doer will go unpunished in scams as he sought to blame former Telecom Minister A Raja for the controversial 2G spectrum allocation.
Sharing concerns of all the sections in parliament over scams, he referred to formation of the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) into 2G scam and the probe being undertaken by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in various corruption cases and said his government would “fully cooperate” with all the agencies “so that the truth comes out”.
“I will be the last person to deny that some unfortunate developments have taken place in the area of telecom, in the area of Commonwealth Games. Those concerns are being addressed.”
“As and when we get credible, actionable evidence, action has been taken. Chief ministers have resigned, ministers have resigned. The CBI has been on the trail of the wrong-doers. I assure the house that there is nothing that we will not do in order to clean our public life,” Singh said winding up the debate on Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address in the Lok Sabha.
While strongly defending the telecom policy, the prime minister appeared to blame Raja in its implementation when he said that the policy of licencing had the support of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the ministry and decided to pursue the path followed until 2007.
“Then subsequently, it turned out that while the policy was sound, the way it was implemented gave rise to problems. Those problems will now be looked into by the JPC, they are being looked into by the PAC and if there are any criminal aspects, they are looked into by CBI,” he said.
Speaking on the same issue, he told the Rajya Sabha later that he was “categorically” assured by Raja that the policy of first-come first-served was being implemented appropriately.
