Countering industrialist Ratan Tata's statement, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said he is "no judge" and his views will not be given much importance as he himself was a "beneficiary" of United Progressive Alliance's telecom policy.
In an open letter to former telecom entrepreneur and Rajya Sabha MP Rajiv Chandrasekhar, Tata has hit out at the BJP saying that many flip flops in telecom policy occurred during its regime and backed the probe into spectrum allocation covering the period since 2001 when BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power.
"He (Tata) is not a judge. He may not be knowing much about what has actually happened," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told mediapersons outside Parliament.
Chandrasekhar had accused Tata of not being transparent and being one of the biggest beneficiaries of the government telecom policy. But Tata maintained that his company Tata Teleservices "has not" been advantaged in any way by former telecom minister A Raja or any earlier minister.
Javadekar said, "Ratan Tata is a great industrialist and I do not want to comment on him but if he is speaking on this (telecom) he should remember that he also owns a telecom company.
"The person who was benefited by UPA policy, public will not give much importance to his statement," the BJP spokesperson said.
Defending NDA's telecom policy, Javadekar said, "We unleashed the revolution and today we are boasting of more than 600 million mobiles in the country. It is due to the pragmatic and visionary policy of the NDA and that is why we are proud of our policy."
Lashing out at the UPA, he said, "The mess which UPA created is there to be seen and those who benefited out of the UPA policy will always testify for the UPA but that does not mean anything to the public."
The deadlock continued in Parliament over the 2G spectrum allocation issue for the 20th day as the Opposition stuck to its demand for Joint Parliamentary Committee into 2G spectrum issue.
"The whole country is convinced about the massive corruption and people want the guilty to be punished. Government is engaged in spreading falsehood and denying the democratic demand of JPC but we will stick to it," Javdekar said.
Referring to allegations levelled by Tata, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said that "it is like spit and run" and demanded that a JPC be formed on the 2G scam issue so that people can depose before it.
"These allegations (by Tata and others) is like spit and run. Somebody makes an allegation and then runs away. Why not form a JPC, which can call Ratan Tata, Rajiv Chandrashekhar and all those the committee deems should be called to probe the scam," Swaraj said.
The BJP said it had no objection to the 2G spectrum allocation issue being probed from 2001 onwards, when NDA was in power, and welcomed the Supreme Court observation in this regard.
"In the November 22 all-party meeting, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam representative T R Baalu had demanded that the ambit of JPC investigations should be from 1998. Swaraj and Arun Jaitley had readily agreed and said they had no objection," Deputy Leader of BJP in Rajya Sabha S S Ahluwalia said.
The senior party leader maintained that BJP had no objection to the JPC probing the scam from 1994 onwards as demanded by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
He insisted that all aspects should be investigated under the JPC and said simultaneous inquiries by JPC and other bodies like Central Bureau of Investigation can go on "as was done during the Harshad Mehta and Securities scam".
Ahluwalia made light of the charge that BJP was miffed at Public Affairs Committee chairperson Murli Manohar Joshi "proactively" investigating the 2-G scam as this was denting the opposition demand for a JPC probe.
"Those who used to earlier question Joshi's credentials as a scholar and accused him of saffronising education are now saying 'do not denigrate PAC'. Joshi is doing his job. PAC will not come in the way of a JPC probe," Ahluwalia said.
Batting for JPC probe, the senior leader said 2,000 hours of tapped conversation between lobbyist Niira Radia and others can only be investigated by a Joint Parliamentary Committee.
Asked if the JPC demand would also be made by BJP in the budget session of Parliament as this session was drawing to a close, Ahluwalia said, "Our first and last demand is for JPC probe. From Parliament we will take it to the streets and come back to Parliament."
However, Swaraj was more guarded in her response, saying nothing could be said about the budget session as it was still a long way off and several developments could take place by then.
