Differences between Shourie and BJP come to the fore

New Delhi, Feb 14 (PTI) The differences between seniorleader Arun Shourie and his party were further exposed todaywith the BJP openly contradicting his claims that it did notwant to raise the 2-G Spectrum allocation issue in Parliamentin 2009 despite his suggestions to do so.

"BJP has taken up the 2-G Spectrum allocation issue fromday one. Arun Shourie has himself raised this issue inParliament till he was a member (of the Rajya Sabha). He wasexpressing the BJP view (in Parliament)," BJP spokespersonPrakash Javadekar said in reply to a question.

Shourie had stated in an interview last week that thoughhe had requested Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha SushmaSwaraj and her counterpart in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley toraise the issue in Parliament, the two had not done so.

To counter Shourie''s contention, BJP also releasedexcerpts of the speech given by Jaitley in Rajya Sabha on July23, 2009 in which he had raised the 2-G Spectrum issue.

"In 2007, an open licence regime was recommended.

Pursuant to this, the Government of India invited applicationsfor telecom licences setting October 1, 2007 as the deadline.

Later, the Government created an artificial date viz September25, 2007as the cut-off date. For some curious reasons,applications received between September 26, 2007 and October1, 2007 were not considered," Jaitley had said in Parliament.

BJP sources also said Jaitley had referred to this issuein a press conference during the same monsoon session in 2007.

Shourie has now been asked by CBI, which isinvestigating the 2-G Spectrum allocation controversy, toappear before it on February 21. His deposition before theinvestigating agency may ruffle feathers within the BJP.

The timing of Shourie''s deposition is also significant asthe budget session of Parliament started from February 21. PTIRC