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Jaitley: evidence submitted to House panel

Aarti Dhar

Two MPs have written a letter to panel chairperson
“We as a party have made an attempt to unveil the truth”

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday claimed that it had collected documentary evidence in the “cash for vote” scam that would “conclusively” establish the involvement of the Samajwadi Party in the entire episode. The evidence has been submitted to the Parliamentary committee enquiring into the matter.

Briefing reporters here, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said two of the three Members of Parliament who were reportedly offered money to abstain from voting during the vote of confidence in Parliament on July 22 — Ashok Argal and Faggan Singh Kulaste — have written a 17-page letter to the chairperson of the committee, V. Kishore Chandradeo, detailing the sequence of events and attaching evidence along with it.

The evidence includes a minute-by-minute account of the whole “deal,” transcripts of conversations and computerised details of mobile telephone numbers used for “striking the deal” among the three MPs, an SP leader and his associate.

The third MP Mahavir Baghora is hospitalised and hence his signatures could not be obtained on the letter, Mr. Jaitley said.

“We have been constrained to analyse the entire evidence and present it to you so that the same can be given to all members of the committee who then have the benefit of the entire transaction as visible on the CD [provided by a private television channel that was involved in the sting operation]. We have expressed our fear that the CD which has been submitted requires to be authenticated and then juxtaposed with the contents of the audio recording and the transcript of the CD,” the letter said.

Accusing the private television channel of not making any effort to either pursue or telecast its investigations as had been agreed upon, Mr. Jaitley said the BJP had pursued the matter on its own and gathered evidence that would prove the charges made against the SP leader, his associate and an SP MP.

Mr. Jaitley said they had handed over the computerised records of calls made from the mobile telephone of the associate to the residence of the SP leader when the “deal” was being finalised.

He said the same mobile number was also used to invite the media for the SP leader’s press conferences. The vehicle that reportedly came to deliver the cash was also registered in the name of a company reportedly owned by the relatives of the SP leader.

Describing the entire episode as “subversion of the Indian Parliament, media and the truth by people in high places,” Mr. Jaitley said it was a test for Parliament and democracy to uncover the truth. “We as a party have made an attempt to unveil the truth as the other institutions collapsed,” he added. However, he did not elaborate on whether the party intended moving the court in the near future.

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