BJP’s policy flip flop the most,says Tata

WLL phones also had other advantages like calling-party-pays revenues and different pulse rates. UASL 2003 allowed limited mobile services players like Tata to offer full-blown mobile services — that is,subscribers would be able to roam across cities using these phones,just as they did with cellular mobile phones.

While replying to Chandrasekhar,Tata accused him of distorting facts and resorting to untruths. Without mentioning names,Tata said that while he hoped his reply would be as widely disseminated as Chandrasekhar’s letter to him,he was “well aware that some media houses will choose not to publish or air my response in deference to their owners,who are the real gainers in the telecom sector,with whom you have unfortunately aligned to provide a massive diversion of attention away from the real culprits in the telecom space.”

Tata reiterated the point about not getting a level playing field under Raja,and spoke of how firms like Bharti (he did not name anyone) had got extra spectrum; he also spoke of the licences issued by Raja’s predecessors at 2001 prices and said this was not highlighted by the media.

He accused Chandrasekhar of being a lobbyist himself: “You parked yourself at the Taj Mahal Hotel Delhi,for several months since 2002 which was the centre of operations for you to prevent entry of WLL Limited Mobility and CDMA as well …

You also constantly solicited support of CII … I take it that in your view this would not constitute lobbying.”

“Your affiliation”,Tata said,“with a particular political party is well known and it appears that their political aspirations and their endeavour to embarrass the Prime Minister and the ruling party may well have been the motivation behind your letter… We should all note that many of the flip flops in the telecom policy occurred during the BJP regime.” In his reply,which he said was preliminary,Chandrasekhar accused Tata of ducking the main issues and instead trying to shoot the messenger. Late in the evening TTSL sent a separate reply to Chandrasekhar on the charges levelled by him on the company for out of turn favour. TTSL denied all such charges.