By IANS
Bhopal : Kishore Samirite, a Samajwadi Party legislator in Madhya Pradesh, has accused the Congress of offering him money for voting in favour of a candidate supported by it for a Rajya Sabha seat.
Vivek Tankha is contesting as an independent with the Congress support and Samajwadi Party too declared its support for him Saturday when he went to file his third set of nomination papers in the company of Sunilam, the Samajwadi Party leader in the assembly.
But Samrite announced Monday 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 told IANS Tuesday.
“He told me that the money he had brought was ‘advance’ for supporting Tankha during the polls and I would be given the remaining amount later,” Samrite said.
“I am going to report about it to the police tonight and tomorrow I will report the mater to the Election Commission,” he said.
None of the senior Congress leaders including Jamuna Devi and Pachouri could be reached for comment and their phones remained switched off.
The state’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (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.