Debate: Corporates in political war- 1

TIMES NOW's Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami debates the issue of 2G spectrum scam blowing up now with Tata group chief Ratan Tata joining the political fight and targeting NDA record, and Rajya Sabha MP and former telecom entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar suggesting Tata benefitted from Raja's policies with Jayanti Natrajan, National Spokesperson, Congress; Ravi Shankar Prasad, General Secretary, BJP; Rajeev Chandrashekhar, MP, Rajya Sabha; Suhel Seth, Managing Partner, Counselage; TSR Subramaniam, Former Cabinet Secretary; Mahesh Jethmalani, Senior Lawyer and Leader, BJP; Gopal Jain, Senior Lawyer and Abhay Aima, Market Analyst.

Under attack from Ratan Tata for his alleged role in subverting telecom policy to benefit some operators, Chandrasekhar hit back saying Tata was diverting the issues raised by him.

Chandrasekhar, who earlier alleged that Tatas were one of the biggest beneficiaries of the out-of-turn allocation of 2G spectrum contrary their claims of transparency and probity, said that Tata had not understood the issues raised by him in an open letter this week.

Chandrasekhar's comments came within hours of Tata slamming him for the alleged subversive role played by him to change the telecom policies for the benefit of some large GSM operators, while denying level-playing field to others.

Countering Tata's statement, the BJP today (Dec 9) said he is "no judge" and his views will not be given much importance as he himself was a "beneficiary" of UPA's telecom policy.

In an open letter to Chandrasekhar, Tata 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 NDA was in power. Tata pointed out Chandrasekhar's alleged role in 2002 to prevent entry of Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) limited mobility and CDMA and wondered if what he did was not lobbying.

Chandrasekhar 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.

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.

The deadlock continued in Parliament over the 2G spectrum allocation issue for the 20th day as the Opposition stuck to its demand for JPC into 2G spectrum issue.

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