Former telecom minister Arun Shourie said the controversial Union Finance Ministry's note to the PMO on the 2G spectrum issue has brought into the open the the "civil war" in the UPA government. "There is a civil war going on for the last four to five years. There is no government and the fight is in the open now," he told reporters here. Replying to a question on the fresh controversy triggered by the note,he said it was also "astonishing and ridiculous" that the Prime Minister or his office had not gone through the note in March. Alleging that the government was suppressing all information regarding the 2G issue,Shourie asked what "Mr Zero Loss" Kapil Sibal and Pawan Kumar Bansal now had to say about this particular note which suggested that the scam could have been averted if the Finance Ministry,then under P Chidambaram,had insisted on spectrum allocation through auction. When asked whether the note could be an escape route for jailed former minister A Raja,Shourie,who was the telecom minister in the NDA government,said this could be a crucial defence for Raja who had been maintaining from the beginning that both the Prime Minister and Chidamabaram were in the know of the entire issue. To a question whether he supported the demand for Chidambaram's resignation on the issue,Shourie quipped "when there is no government at all,where is the question of asking for the resignation?" On the role of another former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran,Shourie said CBI was focusing on Maran now,though it had said that there was no evidence of coercion by him against promoter of Aircel C Sivasankaran in the Aircel-Maxis deal. However,there could be inducement,he said. "It is not necessary that a minister has to coerce to get things done,it can be by inducement also," he said. To an another question on his appearance before CBI,Shourie said he had already answered some questions posed by the agency in January and June. On the Lokpal Bill,Shourie said "inaction" of the government in 2G spectrum issue had led to the civil society to come onto streets and fight against corruption. Even Opposition parties had failed to take up and project the corruption issue,he claimed. When asked whether he foresaw early Lok Sabha elections,Shourie claimed nobody wanted an early polls as all were afraid of not returning to the House for another term.
