Radia tapes: Raja will behave, he has promised

New Delhi: In more trouble for the beleaguered UPA, a fresh set of 800 conversations apparently from the tapped phone of lobbyist Niira Radia were released on Saturday by news magazine Outlook, and they reaffirm allegations of involvement of leading people from the industry, media, politics and even the administrative services in the re-induction of A Raja as telecom minister.

The alleged conversations, part of the official phone tapping done by the Income Tax Department, suggest that Raja retained the telecom portfolio thanks to Radia's strenuous lobbying. Outlook said the conversations were part of the more than 5,800 conversations now in the custody of the Supreme Court.
Radia manages public relations for many well-known companies, such as the Tata Group that, incidentally, also has a telecom arm, and Reliance Industries.
The transcripts of the alleged conversations, put up by Outlook on its website, suggest that re-induction of Raja as the telecom minister in the UPA-II regime was influenced by several vested interests, and was facilitated by top journalists.

Radia is heard speaking with former director general of Confederation of Indian Industry Tarun Das, HT Media's Advisor Vir Sanghvi, IAS officer Sunil Arora, and several colleagues. In her conversation with Das, which apparently happened in May 2009 around the time the UPA-II Cabinet was being constituted, Radia seeks his help in communicating to the Congress that DMK chief M Karunanidhi wants the telecom portfolio to go to Raja alone and that the party should not engage with the other wannabe candidate, Dayanidhi Maran.
Das is heard telling Radia that Raja is an unpopular minister. Radia replies that the only telecom businessman who didn't like Raja was Sunil Mittal of Airtel, and insists that having him in the ministry was better for everyone. "He will behave himself. Trust me, he will behave himself... I have promised, Raja has promised that he will speak to Mittal and deal with the matter. Leave that to me."
The brief introduction to the conversation between Radia and Sanghvi suggests the latter is discussing his then weekly column Counterpoint in Hindustan Times, and apprising her that he has "dressed up" his column on "inter-Ambani battle" as "plea to Man Mohan Singh", that the public will not stand for resources (gas) being cornered.
Outlook did not reveal the source of the tapes and also did not clarify if it had accessed all the tapes. A late night query sent to the magazine's editor Krishna Prasad did not elicit any response.
Source: The Sunday Express