The Hindu : Front Page : We decided to expose masterminds: BJP MPs

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Thursday, Jul 31, 2008
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We decided to expose masterminds: BJP MPs

Special Correspondent

“Cash was delivered by ‘assistant’ of a top Samajwadi leader”

NEW DELHI: In their petition to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the three Bharatiya Janata Party MPs – Ashok Argal, Mahavir Bhagora and Faggan Singh Kulaste – have alleged they were given a bribe to cross-vote in the recent trust motion and cash totalling Rs. 1 crore was delivered to them by an “assistant” of a top Samajwadi Party leader (both of whom they named) hours before the vote.

Copies of the six-page petition dated July 25 signed by the three MPs were made available to reporters by the BJP here on Wednesday.

The petition states that in the run-up to the trust vote, the names of the three MPs were being mentioned as “soft targets” and “vulnerable” to poaching by the ruling parties and their supporters. “Many power brokers through their intermediaries contacted us but we did not take their approaches seriously. When we were approached directly, we decided to expose the masterminds of the cash-for-votes racket.”

They further said: “We contacted CNN-IBN news channel” which deputed its correspondent Siddharth Gautam “to record the whistle-blowing operation” and “to expose the United Progressive Alliance’s unethical plot to convert its minority Government into a majority Government …”

On June 21, according to the petition, one “intermediary” took them to Meridien Hotel to meet a senior Congress leader, but “this meeting did not materialise.” The same day, they alleged, they received a message from an SP MP who came to Mr. Argal’s residence “past midnight” and promised to accompany them to the Samajwadi Party leader’s residence.

Next morning, two BJP MPs were driven to the residence with the CNN-IBN team “following” their car. There, they alleged, the SP leader spoke to a Congress leader (named in the petition), “who gave his consent to the arrangement” of paying Rs. 3 crore to each of the three MPs.

Further, the three alleged, the SP leader agreed to pay an initial token amount of Rs. 1 crore and offered it to them, but they declined, asking that the cash be delivered to them. That was to be done “within 15 minutes.”

Soon after they returned to the official residence of Mr. Argal, an “assistant” of the SP leader, allegedly arrived with the cash in a “white Gypsy car no. DL-2C-S- 8562.” The petition said the camera team of the CNN-IBN had already fixed secret cameras and recorded the giving of the cash.

Later the same day at 4.30 p.m. “we walked to the table of the Secretary General in front of the Speaker’s Chair [in the Lok Sabha], took out the money from the bags and displayed it before all … as tell-tale proof of the cash-for-votes scandal …”

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