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COMMENT
Misguiding the Citizen
WHILE the citizen of India
is finding it tough living in the nation peacefully, the politicians
cutting across the party line are busy debating subjects like
‘cash-for-vote’ and unnecessary controversies. Apprehensively, our
leaders are trying to diverse the attention of the common men from the
real issues for the reason better known to them.
In a democratic country, it
is needless to mention, protecting the life and property of the
citizen is the duty of the elected government. However, it seems our
politicians are not aware about it at all!
While the country is facing
terrorist attacks our leaders are busy with presentation of video
footages. It all started when BJP claimed that they have footages of
the scene from the alleged bribery to its parliamentarians.
Samajwadi Party using the
fresh one to bolster its case that the whole thing was a conspiracy
hatched by top BJP brass to sabotage the July 22 trust vote after it
became certain that the UPA government would win. Surprising political
circles by getting key UPA players Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ramvilas
Paswan on its side, the SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh company
released an edited CD which featured an alleged audio and video sting
on BJP MP Faggan Singh Kulaste, one the three BJP MPs who alleged that
they were offered bribes to abstain from voting. In the recorded
conversation with an unknown person, Kulaste said that L K Advani,
Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley were involved in "operationalizing" the
scandal while Jaitley would know the origin of the Rs 1 crore which
was flashed in Lok Sabha.
Kulaste is also heard saying
that he barely knew Amar Singh, beyond running into him on a few
occasion — a contention that was seized upon by SP leaders and their
sympathisers to question BJP's claim that the Mandla MP, along with
Ashok Argal, had met Amar Singh on the morning of the trust vote at
the latter's official Lodhi Road residence.
As the 25-minute narrative
was played before a packed news conference at Paswan’s house, Amar
Singh added his own version of the sequence of events. He said Jaitley
was his "good friend" and he did not expect that he would hatch such a
conspiracy. The lament came laced with the warning, "We all live in
glass houses and it is unwise for anyone to throw stones."
The CD, which also carried
the "unedited" version of the one released by BJP rebel Uma Bharti
last week, showed Sanjeev Saxena, the man believed to have carried Rs
1 crore to Argal’s house, going in and coming out of the houses of
Jaitley and Shahid Siddiqui. Amar Singh said if Jaitley thought that
merely a car entering his residence was evidence of his collusion in
the bribery, then Saxena repeatedly visiting his and Siddiqui’s houses
well after the trust vote was also valid "circumstantial evidence".
About Saxena, claimed by BJP
MPs as the conduit who carried money to them, Amar Singh claimed that
he (Saxena) never directly worked for him. On Sunday, BJP had released
a text message from Saxena’s mobile informing journalists of a press
conference Amar Singh addressed on July 21, as it tried to establish
that the former took orders from the SP general secretary.
Singh, however, claimed that
he knew Saxena only because he worked from the South Avenue flat
allotted to his party colleague Siddiqui as it was their combined
office. "Saxena went away with Siddiqui the day he quit SP and joined
BSP," he said.
Singh signed off by announcing that he would quit public life if his
involvement was proved. Mulayam said BJP, which stage-managed the
entire episode to create an issue for elections, was now lying about
it. "They consciously discredited our Parliament," he said.
While this was completely along expected lines, the SP duo got a boost
from the strong defence put up for Singh by RJD boss Lalu Prasad.
Vigorously defending SP, Lalu said "communal forces" would not be able
to escape the responsibility in the matter by pointing fingers at Amar
Singh.
"Why did Advani suddenly
leave the House on that day after his speech? Why didn't BJP MPs
inform the Speaker that they would carry the cash inside Parliament?
The three MPs should be made to undergo a narco analysis test to bring
out the truth," the RJD leader said. Paswan attributed the "nautanki"
to a desperate BJP which knew that the Opposition was going to lose
the trust vote
The Congress termed as a "work of fiction" what the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) presented as "fresh evidence" in the cash-for-vote
allegation and said it was a "desperate attempt" to divert attention
from the government's trust vote victory. Congress spokesperson
Jayanti Natarajan reject the new allegations as desperate antics of
bad losers.
Reacting to the BJP's
"evidence" of the alleged bribing of MPs, she said: "The BJP is the
king of stings. Its former national president (Bangaru Laxman) and one
of the three MPs in the cash-for-vote controversy had figured in sting
operations that prove the party's faulty credentials."
While the BJP has decided to boycott a TV channel (CNN-IBN) which
claimed that it will telecast the sting operation conducted by it.
Having failed in that (getting the channel to telecast the tapes),
they have produced a work of fiction in desperate attempt to divert
attention from the UPA's victory," she said.
Questioning the credibility of the TV channel's sting operation on the
alleged bribing episode and the conduct of three BJP MPs in question,
the spokesperson said: "They need to answer to the nation why money
was not handed over to police or a complaint was not lodged.
"How could these MPs manage
to bring money inside parliament? If these MPs smuggled money in
parliament with the approval of the BJP leadership, we feel that
security of parliament stands compromised." Natarajan urged the Lok
Sabha speaker to examine the security breach and sought stern action
against the three MPs.
What the citizen of India is wondering is that why such a delay by the
probe panel constituted by our elected representatives into such a
serious issue?
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