Posted by Namita Bhandare:
Shame shame poppy shame. A vote of confidence debate in India’s Parliament was adjourned after Opposition BJP MPs interrupted the session by waving wads of cash which they claimed was evidence of bribes being offered by Amar Singh of the Samajwadi Party to abstain from voting against the ruling United Progressive Alliance.
Manmohan Singh’s government went on to win the vote with 275 for it, 256 against and 10 abstentions.
Meanwhile, Amar Singh has denied the charges and is threatening defamation suits against the MPs
For the Indian Parliament this is a new low. But cash and politics is hardly a new story. Here’s a quick history:
Jharkhand sham: In 1993, the Congress was accused of paying 10 MPs from Jharkhand and UP to vote in favour of the Narasimha Rao government. Some MPs went ahead and deposited the money into their bank accounts and the paper trail clearly established that cash was paid. The Supreme Court took up the matter but in 1998 ruled that the MPs who took money had not committed a crime. The judges said they were protected by the Constitution which grants immunity to MPs for anything they say or do in Parliament
Cash for questions: In December 2005, news channel Aaj Tak aired tapes (shot by website Cobrapost) of Indian MPs taking money purpotedly for raising questions in Parliament. Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said it was a very ’serious matter’ and appointed a five-member committee that found all 11 — ten from the Lok Sabha and one from the Upper House — guilty of accepting bribes ranging from Rs 15,000 to Rs 1.1 lakh for asking questions dealing with small business issues. They were all expelled.
Tehelka sting: In 2001, undercover journalists working for Tehelka posed as weapons contractors and caught the then BJP president Bangaru Laxman on camera accepting a bribe of Rs one lakh. Laxman was forced to resign and remains in the political wilderness. Tehelka also claimed that the corruption in India’s weapons acquisition programme involved the then defence minister George Fernandes and caught footage of his close associate, Jaya Jaitley apparently accepting money.
Harshad Mehta: On June 28 1993, Harshad Mehta — also known as the Big Bull of the Bombay Stock Exchange — held a press conference at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai. He announced that he had made personally made a pay off of Rs one crore to Prime Minster Narasimha Rao. The first installment of Rs 67 lakh had been made at Rao’s official residence at Racecourse Road. Rao denied the charge and in the event, was able to establish that he couldn’t have met Mehta on the day he claimed he had. But the charges of corruption and general venality stuck.
Hawala: In 1991, the arrest of Surendra Jain, a Madhya Pradesh businessman, yielded two diaries apparently written by him that detailed bribes and payoffs totalling a total of Rs 65 crore made to a total of 115 politicians and senior bureaucrats. For several years the CBI sat on what it knew was a hot potato. Then, Ram Jethmalani got wind of the diaries and went public with them. In January 1995, the CBI finally recommended the prosecution of 15 people, including L.K. Advani. Advani declared that he would abjure public office until he was cleared of all charge. With time, Advani was cleared but by the then, the BJP had propped up Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its prime ministerial candidate, and Advani was relegated to second place, losing out his chance at the top job.
Similar Posts:
- Indians’ worst fear: the honest politician
- Want good press? Pay good money
- BJP’s L.K. Advani is the new kid on the blog
- In Bangladesh, an inauspicious rebirth for parliamentary democracy
- Richest god gets ‘golden temple’
really, it is very dangerous for our democracy. good article.