Chennai:
Former Telecom Minister A Raja, accused of executing a scam worth Rs 1.76 lakh crore when in office today said, "I will prove my innocence." He added, "I did everything in consultation with the Prime Minister."
Mr Raja, who belongs to the Tamil Nadu party DMK, has alleged repeatedly that he kept the Prime Minister and Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the loop about the policies he followed when allocating mobile network licenses and second-generation or 2G airwaves in 2008.
His repeated requests to testify for a parliamentary committee examining the swindle have been refused by the panel's chairman, PC Chacko of the Congress.
A draft of the report Mr Chacko has prepared, which was circulated last night, said, the Prime Minister was "misled" by Mr Raja.
Opposition members from the same committee from the BJP and the Left have said they disagree with the report, which the BJP's Ravi Shankar Prasad described as "a document of the Congress." The Opposition will challenge the report at a meeting on April 25.
Mr Raja said he will send a hundred pages of notes to the committee.
Mr Chacko's report has blamed Mr Raja for twisting a first-come-first-policy to help ineligible companies grab cheap mobile network licenses with second-wave or 2G airwaves thrown in for free.
The draft report also says that it disagrees with the government's auditor which said that Rs 1.76 lakh crore had been lost on account of the alleged swindle.