Mukesh Ambani clarifies on PM Modi's Reliance Jio ad, says 'inspired by his Digital India vision'

 New Delhi: After, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s picture on the advertisement of recently launched Reliance Jio network created a lot of speculations and buzz; Mukesh Ambani has now come forward and presented his clarification. Ambani condemned all those opposing the advertisement, saying “Modi is my Prime Minister as well”. He added that “The Prime Minister has given a Digital India vision which I am personally inspired by. We are dedicating our service to the vision of India's leader, to India and 1.2 billion Indians and there's nothing political about this”. Prime Minister’s picture in full page Reliance Jio advertisments on the launch of its telecom service kicked up a controversy today with opposition parties taking jibes at him.

Congress also said Modi should take action against Reliance Jio if the telecom company has failed to take permission from the PMO for using his photograph. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal mockingly dubbed Modi as "Mr Reliance" and accused him of "openly endorsing" its latest Jio. Continuing with a war of letters against free voice call provider Reliance Jio, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has told the Prime Minister's Office that incumbents are "not obliged to entertain interconnect requests" that are "anti-competitive". Telecom operators' body COAI, which is an association of telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, has written to the Prime Minister's Office seeking its intervention on the issue to "restore fair competition". "They (operators) wish to politely clarify that they are in no position, by way of network resources, or financial resources, to terminate volumes of traffic which are markedly asymmetric. Neither are they obliged to entertain interconnect requests which are derived from abnormal induced traffic patterns that game the IUC regime and are anti-competitive," COAI said in a letter to the Prime Minister's Office. Reliance Jio, which commercially launched its services on September 5, has accused incumbent players like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone of not releasing sufficient interconnection ports during its test run of services.