By IANS,
New Delhi : In yet another twist to the cash-for-votes scam, three allies of the ruling Congress Monday released a fresh CD showing that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had ‘stage-managed’ the episode for political gains during the July 22 trust vote.
Alleging that the main opposition BJP had stage-managed the entire episode for political gains, Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav said: “All the claims of BJP leaders have been proved wrong.”
Mulayam Singh, who held a press conference with Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader Ram Vilas Paswan here, said there were loopholes in the BJP’s claim that its MPs were bribed.
“When some people visited the BJP MP’s house to deliver money why was it not handed over to police. Fingerprinting tests could have led to some evidence,” he said.
Three BJP MPs – Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora – stunned the nation by brandishing wads of currency notes in the Lok Sabha during a debate on a trust motion moved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The opposition alleges that Samajwadi Party’s Amar Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s political adviser Ahmed Patel had offered the BJP members bribe of Rs.30 million each to abstain from the voting.
Mulayam Singh said that the entire incident was “cooked up”.
The CNN-IBN television channel had done a “sting operation” on the alleged bribing. But the channel has not aired the episode of how the bribe money exchanged hands.
The second CD, which reportedly turned out to be a bogus one was presented by former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti, who also claimed that BJP had stage-managed the entire episode.