By IANS
Bhopal : The Madhya Pradesh unit of the Samajwadi Party Wednesday suspended its legislator Kishore Samrite for anti-party activities after he accused the Congress of trying to bribe him for his vote in the Rajya Sabha elections.
“Samrite has been suspended from the party on the directives issued by our party’s national secretary Amar Singh,” Samajwadi Party state president Narayan Tripathi told IANS.
Samrite Tuesday alleged that Congress leaders had attempted to bribe him for voting in favour of independent candidate Vivek Tankha, who is backed by Congress and Samajwadi Party.
The Samajwadi Party had earlier in the day warned Samrite against violating the party whip to vote in favour of Tankha.
Samrite, who represents the Lanjhi constituency, Monday announced he would not support Tankha.
“Since then, several Congress leaders including Leader of Opposition Jamuna Devi and state president Suresh Pachouri have been offering me up to Rs.30 lakh (Rs.3 million) to vote for Tankha. Today former minister N.P. Prajapati came to my Bhopal residence and gave me a polythene packet containing Rs.10 lakh,” Samrite said Tuesday.
But talking to reporters in the assembly press room, Tripathi asked where was the question of bribing Samrite when the party itself had issued a whip in favour of Tankha.
“Samrite’s integrity is doubtful and he might be making baseless allegations at the behest of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) which is conspiring to defame renowned Supreme Court lawyer Tankha,” Tripathi said.
The state’s ruling BJP has fielded Rajya Sabha member Maya Singh, national secretary Prabhat Jha and Raghunandan Sharma for the three seats in the upper house falling vacant next month and it has 166 lawmakers in the house of 230 while it requires 174 votes to win all three seats.
The Congress and the Samajwadi Party have 41 and eight lawmakers respectively.