While Scindia said that the country cannot forget the ‘2G scam’ -- a blot on the country's history, Ramesh said that BJP reaped huge political dividends from the media frenzy generated by its proxies in the government over the UPA’s allocation of 2G spectrum by administrative processes rather than auctions.
“A scam that not just led to a colossal loss of Rs 1,76,645 crore to the exchequer, but also gave government-corporate collaboration its worst name, a.K.A crony capitalism,” Scindia posted on X, saying that spectrum in the UPA era was allocated via the opaque first come, first served (FCFS) policy, resulting in scams and losses.
Scindia was responding to Ramesh’s post on X that linked the process of in-principle approval by the current government to that of administrative spectrum allocation process during the UPA regime. “The government has stated on record that ‘spectrum assigned administratively are also chargeable and hence contribute to revenue’ a position contrary to what the Prime Minister has been loudly proclaiming for many years.
“Recall that the BJP reaped huge political dividends from the media frenzy generated by its proxies in the government over the UPA's allocation of 2G spectrum by administrative processes rather than auctions. Fraudulent revenue loss projections and an overactive judiciary ended up doing huge damage to the investment environment in telecoms,” Ramesh said.
Lauding the BJP-led NDA government, Scindia, however, replied that the Modi government prioritises transparency and public interest -- mobile telephony spectrum is now auctioned. The current regime has decided to approve allocation of spectrum to satellite communication companies without auction through administrative process. “The satellite spectrum cannot be auctioned due to technical and operational reasons,” he said.
