Chennai: The 2G spectrum cases were part of a “conspiracy” to topple the then UPA under which he served as telecom minister and it was unfortunate that the Union government could not sense it, DMK leader A. Raja said on Friday. In an emotional letter to DMK president M. Karunanidhi from New Delhi, where he is currently camping, Raja said he was placing the 2G verdict at the feet of the nonagenarian and asked who is going to punish those who tried to taint “your reputation and your 80 years of public life.”
Maintaining that his long-held stand that he followed due procedure while allotting spectrum on first come first serve basis, Raja said he was “jailed” for revolutionalising the telecom sector whose fruits people of the country are now enjoying in the form of accessing WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter at the touch of their phone. “We gave 59 crore mobile connections against the 60 crore target set before 2012 in 2009 itself. The spectrum cartel was broken to pave way for the WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter revolution. Calling it a crime and being jailed for this will happen only in India,” Raja said.
Criticising the UPA-I under which he served as telecom minister from May 2007 to May 2009, Raja said it was regrettable that the government itself was unable to figure out that the spectrum issue got caught in a conspiracy to defeat the UPA coalition government. “It does not require extraordinary intelligence (on the part of the then government) to understand that hegemonic forces which decided that it could no longer tolerate the national political clout of the DMK should have been there (behind the alleged conspiracy),” Raja said.
Contending that the spectrum allegations tainted the “ideological movement” of the DMK, he said the battle was conceived was individuals and waged by institutions - including CVC, CBI and JPC. “Seven years has rolled by and in these years how many demeaning words. The spectrum storm not only besmirched individuals but also a movement (DMK) moored in ideology,” Raja said.
