Okay if probe covers 2001 allocations: BJP

Former Telecom Minister and senior BJP leader Arun Shourie on Wednesday said the Supreme Courts suggestion to widen the ambit of the investigation into the 2G spectrum and include allocations made since 2001 would nail the myth being spread by A Raja that he was only following in the footsteps of his predecessors. The BJP,which was in power during that period,too,said it had no problems with a scrutiny of the decisions taken 2001 onwards. The Supreme Courts observation should be honoured. We have said it earlier also and in the all-party meeting as well that we have no problems. We have told the government that if you want to make inquiries,do it, senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said. Talking to The Indian Express,Shourie,however,noted that such a move should not delay the prosecution of Raja. Shourie said contrary to what Raja has been claiming,he had not followed the first-come-first-serve principle. He changed it arbitrarily. He changed the basis of first come first serve principle after it had been applied. What he had done has no relationship at all with the policies and procedures followed at that time during the NDA period, he said. First,it was time and date of application. Then,he Raja changed it to the time and date at which the conditions specified in the letter of intent will be fulfilled. One of the conditions,as the CAG has observed,was that bring bankers drafts of Rs 1,650 crore in 41 minutes. We did not do all that, he said. Shourie said the first-come-first-serve basis was applied during the NDA rule across sectors and it was applied as a thumb rule. The circumstances now and then were totally different. The Telecom sector had not been liberated and mobile telephony was in its early stages, he said. Meanwhile,the BJP made a bid to wriggle out of the embarrassing situation. Naidu said there was no conflict between the PAC examining the 2G issue and the demand for JPC.