Boycott Jio: Reliance alleges Airtel, Vi luring customers to opt out of Jio over farmers� protest, rivals junk charge

15-12-2020

Reliance's telecommunication arm Jio has sought action against competitors Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel. In a letter to the regulator, Reliance Jio accused Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel of resorting to "unethical" ways and spreading "frivolous rumours" that Jio will somehow gain from the Centre's three new farm bills. Farmers from across the country, especially Punjab and Haryana have laid siege to Delhi demanding the withdrawal of the three new farm laws which they believe could lead to absolute privatisation of agriculture in India. In a stern letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), Jio blamed its competitors of launching a "vicious" campaign. "A large number of port-out requests, wherein the customers are citing this as the sole reason for porting out of Jio without having any complaints or other issues related to Jio services", the Mukesh Ambani led telecom provider said in its letter to Trai dated December 11. "This is further to our aforementioned letter dated 28 September 2020 highlighting the unethical and anti-competitive MNP campaign, being run by Airtel and Vi to capitalize on the ongoing farmers' protests in the northern parts of the country," the letter by Jio went on to add. Responding to the allegations, Bharti Airtel has termed the charges levelled against it by Jio as "baseless". "Despite being provoked by some competitors who we know will go to any length to make baseless allegations, adopt bullying tactics and use intimidatory behaviour we have always conducted our business with character and transparency something that we are deeply proud of and known for," Bharti Airtel said in a statement. Vodafone India, now Vi, also issued a statement to that effect saying, "Vi believes in doing business with ethics. These are baseless allegations against us to malign our reputation. We strongly refute such irresponsible comments on us."