Jayalalithaa questions delay in Raja's spectrum scam charge

Questioning the timing of IT and communication minister A Raja's allegation of a scam in spectrum allocation during the NDA regime, AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa today wanted to know why DMK's representatives in the Union Cabinet did not raise the issue then.

In a statement here, she wanted to know what Raja and his then colleagues, including late Murasoli Maran and TR Baalu, were doing when the telecom ministry of the NDA regime was perpetrating the "Rs1 lakh crore fraud on the nation".
   
"Why did not any of them protest? Why did they not at least raise the issue at a Cabinet meeting? Why did they not walk out of the NDA? By keeping silent, were they not guilty of abetting the multi-crore scam?" Jayalalithaa asked.

By his charge now, Raja had "opened the doors of a new closet from which hitherto well-hidden skeletons had tumbled out and it is now up to the BJP leadership in the know of things to confirm or refute this allegation," she said.

"Raja, a lawyer by profession, should be aware that one wrong does not justify another. A murderer, when trapped, cannot get away from the long arm of justice by claiming that someone else has committed murder as well and that person was still at large," she said in apparent reference to charges of irregularties in spectrum allocation under Raja's tenure.