Addressing a press conference, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said Raja should be sacked in view of the monumental spectrum allocation scam that has come to light. He even described the scandal as the largest-ever scam in India.
Jaitley lashed out at the Telecom Minister for falsely claiming the spectrum were allocated at a price fixed by the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India). Jaitley further stated even the TRAI had said in a statement that the price for 2007 (the year when spectrum were allocated to nine companies) needed to be fixed based on the market mechanism.
It is to be noted that the 2007 spectrum allocation was made based on the price fixed by TRAI in 2001. Jaitley said the telecom industry had undergone a revolution between 2001 and 2007 and that the valuations needed to be made afresh.
According to the BJP leader, most of the companies that paid Rs 1,650 crore each for spectrum in 2007 were real estate firms. These firms within days of the spectrum allocation used the FDI route and sold stakes as much as over 70% to foreign players for sums ranging over USD 2 billion (over Rs 9,000 crore), Jaitley alleged. He added that the government lost nearly Rs 7,000 crore per allocation, which amounts to Rs 64,000 crore in total.
