Union textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran on Monday denied allegations that he had forced NRI entrepreneur Sivasankaran to sell his stake in telecom firm Aircel to Malaysian company Maxis and sought to prove that Aircel was up for grabs even before he became communications minister.
Mr Maran, in an impromptu media conference outside his Boat Club bungalow here, said, “Sivasankaran is not a millionaire but a multi-multi-billionaire. No one can force anyone to sell anything or a company like Aircel.”
Flaunting newspaper reports relating to the sale of Aircel stake to Hutch and Sistema Telecom that appeared between April 2004 and February 2005, Mr Maran tried to drive home the point that Aircel was already up for sale. “The company was parading itself much before I became the minister. I never had to force anyone to sell any business,” he said, adding that if someone felt they were being forced “they could have gone to court and nothing of that kind happened”.