• Manmohan Singh, PM Deft attack to put pressure on an ally’s tainted minister.
• M. Karunanidhi, DMK Supports Raja, but is also maintaining a surprising silence.
• Nripendra Mishra, Former TRAI Head Was at loggerheads with Raja. Will he speak up now?
• Siddharth Behura, Former DoT Secy Seen as a key Raja man, is he the fall guy?

***

Unanswered Questions

• Why is the Congress running the risk of conflict with a long-standing political ally?
• What’s the new information that precipitated CBI action on a two-year-old scam?
• Why did CVC wait for the retirement of DoT secretary Siddharth Behura on Sept 30, 2009, before transferring the case to the CBI?
• Raja says the PM and FM were consulted, but no one is backing that claim or even giving an opinion on it. Why?
• Why is DMK relatively quiet except for a measured show of support for Raja?
• If Raja is showing no inclination to quit, and the PM isn’t showing him the door, then what is the real purpose of the investigation?

***

Conspiracy theories galore

• The cartel of big telecom operators (which Raja himself refers to) is hard at play, targeting the viability of the newer players
• DMK’s Karunanidhi is playing a sharp political game to bring daughter Kanimozhi into the national political scene
• The PMO wants a weak Raja in order to cement its growing clout in the important ministry

***

October 22. Afternoon. As investigators from the feared CBI raided the red-and-white multi-storeyed Sanchar Bhawan, housing the busy telecom ministry, there was a different kind of huddle less than a kilometre away. At the prime minister’s office (PMO), secretaries to the government were waiting for the weekly meeting of the Union cabinet to end. Obviously, with the CBI in the field, the fate of Union telecom minister A. Raja was the centre of all discussions—and it was apparent that not only had the action been in the works for a while, it was also cleared at the highest level.

One conversation revolved around whether Raja (who is from the DMK) could find himself implicated. An officer in the know told his interlocutor that, while there appeared to be something substantial against senior officers of the ministry, it wasn’t clear yet whether anything could be “proved” against Raja. His conclusion: if the officials were nailed, the trail would lead to Raja.

Either way, the raid on a sitting minister’s turf is a first—and has led to shockwaves across the establishment. The CBI has alleged criminal conspiracy between DoT officials and private firms in the allotment of 2G spectrum in 2008. That, as everyone knows by now, is the great spectrum scam—one that is said to have cost the national exchequer a whopping Rs 50,000 crore in licence fees. It has obviously come as much-wanted grist to the opposition mill, both nationally and in Tamil Nadu.

Curiously, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is being quoted by the minister and the DMK as having given him a “clean chit”, has actually been rather ambivalent on the subject. By saying “it is not proper for me to join issue with a cabinet colleague in public”, Manmohan has left enough room for interpretation and conjecture. “The PM was not defending Raja,” a party spokesperson sought to clarify. “All he said is that he won’t discuss the matter publicly.”

Needless to say, the opposition parties have smelt blood and are demanding Raja’s head to begin with. But, for now, Raja remains defiant, and shows no signs of resigning. There are other compulsions too: the Congress cannot push the DMK beyond a point as it could end up strengthening the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, where elections are due in two years and the Congress needs its alliance intact. The DMK is also aware that Raja is a Dalit politician. So why is the prime minister rocking the proverbial boat?

Some answers could come from the investigation into the scam, which kicked off early last year. Based on a string of complaints, the CVC had sent seven questionnaires to telecom secretary Siddharth Behura, seeking details and clarifications on various steps in the allocation of licences. Some of the letters, written by CVC secretary K.S. Ramasubban (copies of which are with Outlook) show the DoT responses were evasive at best.

Voicing dissatisfaction, one of Ramasubban’s letters sent in November 2008 stated: “The commission has observed that the reply of the department is neither complete nor specific...you may personally look into the matter and arrange to send reply to the issues contained in the enclosed note within two weeks.” Obviously, the CVC—which had been getting complaints on the scam—was not happy with the ministry’s response.

The CVC finally forwarded the matter to the CBI in the first week of October 2009. It is surprising that the CVC, after all its investigations, chose to hand over the case to the CBI days after Behura retired on September 30. “We have referred the case for specific reasons to a central agency as we have done whatever we could do at our level. The central agency will now decide its course of action regarding how the case will be taken forward,” Ramasubban told Outlook.

The CBI didn’t take long to act. Within days, on October 22, a team under CBI joint director Y.P. Singh and dig Vineet Agarwal raided the DoT premises and the offices of new telecom operators. It also registered a case of criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct against unknown officials of DoT and private persons and other companies. According to sources, the search was also for files in order to find the “notes” of the minister and key officials on the controversial 2G spectrum allocation. “It’s impossible that CBI raids that could implicate a cabinet colleague could have taken place without authorisation by the prime minister,” a senior Congress functionary told Outlook.

According to sources, three key officials of DoT—Ashok Chandra, wireless advisor; P.K. Mittal, deputy director-general, access services; and A.K. Srivastava, deputy director-general, access services—were taken to CBI headquarters for questioning. Behura, who was at the helm of DoT during the controversy, has, however, been left alone—for the time being. Currently, he’s heading a joint venture between C-DoT and Alcatel in Chennai and couldn’t be reached for his comments.

Obviously, a lot of questions are being asked about the actions of Raja and DoT under him. While Raja is sticking to his guns and says he followed a path taken by his two predecessors, it is clear he chose to ignore drastically changed market realities. The fact is Raja stuck to a licence price of Rs 1,651 crore when the market price was in multiples of that—a fact admitted by even the then TRAI chairman, Nripendra Mishra. Rajeev Chandrashekhar, a Rajya Sabha MP and former telecom entrepreneur, says, “While Raja could have fixed the problem and taken steps by revising the price, he chose to continue with the existing policy.”

It is learnt that Raja and key DoT officials did not pay heed to the advice of some senior officials in the ministry and that a few key officials were removed as they weren’t toeing the line. “The DoT and TRAI have had a long history of being non-transparent and playing the interest of some parties,” says Chandrashekhar. A former senior official of the ministry adds, “The DoT is not equipped to look into all the technicalities of applications and documents submitted to it. In many cases, they are accepted and cleared as it is.”

What the investigations have found so far is not clear. But one thing is sure. Whether Raja stays or goes, the episode could leave a mark over all future dealings of the ministry, specially the 3G auctions, the process for which has already begun. “There is no doubt that the auctions will be delayed as there is no time for post-bid consultations which would be more stringent now,” says a former senior official of the ministry. “I don’t see it happening before mid-February.”

Will Raja stay or not? It is well known that Manmohan was not happy with Raja becoming a member of his cabinet and that, too, holding the same portfolio as he did in UPA-1. The next few weeks could be crucial for Raja as the PM and UPA, despite the political compulsions, may take a call on the issue. As a senior party functionary put it, “The PM is a political animal...if the media plays up the issue, then Raja may have to go. If it dies down, then....”

By Smita Gupta, Arindam Mukherjee and Chandrani Banerjee