Coimbatore: Former telecom minister Arun
Shourie on Friday said the controversial Union Finance Ministry`s
note to the PMO on the 2G spectrum issue has brought into the
open the the "civil war" in the UPA government.
"There is a civil war going on for the last four to five
years. There is no government and the fight is in the open
now," he told reporters here.
Replying to a question on the fresh controversy triggered
by the note, he said it was also "astonishing and ridiculous"
that the Prime Minister or his office had not gone through the
note in March.
Alleging that the government was suppressing all
information regarding the 2G issue, Shourie asked what "Mr
Zero Loss" Kapil Sibal and Pawan Kumar Bansal now had to say
about this particular note which suggested that the scam could
have been averted if the Finance Ministry, then under P
Chidambaram, had insisted on spectrum allocation through
auction.
When asked whether the note could be an escape route for
jailed former minister A Raja, Shourie, who was the telecom
minister in the NDA government, said this could be a crucial
defence for Raja who had been maintaining from the beginning
that both the Prime Minister and Chidamabaram were in the know
of the entire issue.
To a question whether he supported the demand for
Chidambaram`s resignation on the issue, Shourie quipped "when
there is no government at all, where is the question of asking
for the resignation?"
On the role of another former telecom minister Dayanidhi
Maran, Shourie said CBI was focusing on Maran now, though it
had said that there was no evidence of coercion by him against
promoter of Aircel C Sivasankaran in the Aircel-Maxis deal.
However, there could be inducement, he said.
"It is not necessary that a minister has to coerce to get
things done, it can be by inducement also," he said.
To an another question on his appearance before CBI,
Shourie said he had already answered some questions posed by
the agency in January and June.
PTI
