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Cash-for-votes: Speaker orders probe

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Saturday ordered a time-bound inquiry by a panel into allegations of cash being given to buy votes on the basis of a joint complaint he had received on Friday from three BJP MPs, who waved wads of currency notes in the Lok Sabha on July 22 during the debate on the trust motion moved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a day earlier.

Panel members

The seven-member committee to be headed by Congress MP V. Kishore Chandra Deo will have as its members V.K. Malhotra (Bharatiya Janata Party), Mohammad Salim (Communist Party of India-Marxist), Ram Gopal Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Devendra Prasad Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal), Rajesh Verma (Bahujan Samaj Party) and C. Kuppusami (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam).

The committee, whose members have been nominated by the Speaker, has been requested to give its report by August 11.

Ad hoc committee

It is a special ad hoc committee constituted for the purpose of this specific inquiry.

It has been authorised to follow its own procedure. The complaint was given by Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora.

Apparently, August 11 has been fixed as the date for completion of the fact-finding work by the committee as the parliamentary session is likely to begin that day.

The Speaker, it is believed, wants the report with him before the session commences.

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