The war of words between Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata and Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrasekhar over spectrum allocation might shift to a different turf, as Chandrasekhar today challenged Tata to publicly debate on these issues.
“Rather than exchange of letters, I am perfectly willing to publicly debate these issues with any of the telecom companies, including Tata, if they choose to do so. Tata has made some unfortunate personal remarks about my motivations and political affiliations. I will neither dignify those with a comment nor lower the quality of our dialogue by engaging in personal attack and innuendo,” said Chandrasekhar.
Tata and Chandrasekhar started a public verbal duel after the latter wrote a letter, saying that Tata Teleservices gained from the out of turn allocation of spectrum. He made these comments after Tata criticised telecom policy and said in an interview that incumbents were hoarding spectrum. Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, too, selectively participated in the fight between dual technology operators and GSM telecom operators.
Chandrasekhar said in view of the Supreme Court statement on the 2G scam, he had decided against a continued public exchange of letters. He said these letters would distract the media and public from the ongoing investigation into the spectrum scam, and give a false impression that this was a corporate war. “The investigation and recovery of the lost money is a national priority,” he wrote.
“Why were certain policies of the government created, which the CAG has confirmed has caused loss to the public exchequer? Which corporates were the beneficiaries of such policies? Who are the shadowy politicians and bureaucrats behind these benefits and beneficiaries – and their relationship with corporates/lobbyists?” he asked.
Chandrasekhar, the former owner of BPL Communications, now called Loop Telecom, said if either Tata or any other telecom company would accept a debate, he was willing to discuss topics like policy flip-flop in the telecom industry, out of turn allocation of spectrum and spectrum hoarding.
In his letter, Chandrasekhar said he hoped companies like DB Telecom, Unitech, Reliance, Airtel, Vodafone will join the debate too. “It’s time the country learns the truth about the goings-on in the telecom sector. I fully expect that I will be subjected to personal attacks and innuendo of the kind that was unfortunately launched by Tata, but they will not dissuade me from my mission.” A spokesperson at Tata Teleservices said they would not be sending any response to Chandrasekhar’s letter.
