•Anandita Mankotia: In the telecom sector, what would your broad strategy be and how would it be different from what it is now?

It would be very transparent, whatever bidding process we adopt. This government’s procedures have not been transparent. It’s a scandal of huge proportions—the manner in which the spectrum issue has been tackled. Even if this government does something in the next couple of weeks, it will have to be reviewed by the next government. 

•Shekhar Gupta: On the nuclear deal, did the UPA do enough to communicate with the BJP. Were you given sufficient respect? 

The answer is no. They woke up to it very late in the day. When the famous statement between Manmohan Singh and George Bush was signed in July 2005, even people in the government were not aware of it. It was a hatchet job. When they came back and started working on the nuts and bolts of the agreement, that was when they should have consulted us. But they kept taking one step after another without taking the main Opposition party into confidence. They did not share the 123 Agreement with us. I hold the Left parties, especially the CPI(M), responsible for the nuclear deal going through. Why? Let me give you the background: it all started with a lunch at JD(U) leader Digvijay Singh’s place. Sitaram Yechury and Natwar Singh were present. I told Yechury that I wanted to discuss the nuclear deal with him. He agreed. Natwar Singh, Digvijay Singh, Yechury and I then agreed that since we were opposed to the deal, we should adopt a common approach. I suggested that Parliament have a resolution on this issue. Yechury said, ‘Fine, work out a draft’. I showed the draft to my leadership and sent it to him. A day or two later, we met at Natwar Singh’s residence and discussed it. Some changes were suggested. Everyone took it back to their respective parties. Then we decided that in order to have a majority, we must involve the Samajwadi Party. Amar Singh was all for it.  This was during the 2006 Monsoon Session of Parliament. We decided that we would meet with the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and tell him about this on the first day of the session. We met but the absentee was Sitaram Yechury. In Parliament, he said he had been held up in traffic or something like that. I then suggested he tell the Congress party about our resolution. He went to talk to Pranab Mukherjee but returned to say that a resolution is not acceptable to the Congress and they will not budge an inch. Then I said we won’t budge either and let’s go ahead with the resolution. But the CPI(M) did not support the resolution and we did not have a majority in Rajya Sabha. If that resolution had gone through, the government would not have been able to go through with the nuclear deal. And why didn’t it go through? Due to the recalcitrance of the CPI (M). Apparently, Yechury had been warned that there was some statement Pranab Mukherjee made in West Bengal about the CPI(M) hobnobbing with the BJP. That put the cat among the pigeons.  

... contd.