The Hindu : National : BJP not enthusiastic about inquiry committee

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National

BJP not enthusiastic about inquiry committee

Neena Vyas

“Up to the Speaker to hand over tapes to the inquiry committee”

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Secretariat sources clearly indicated that “all party leaders” have been “nominated” by the Speaker and parties would not be free to change the names of their representatives (on the seven-member committee set up to go into the cash-for-vote scam), except with the Speaker’s permission.

The committee has four members, who also served on the panel chaired by Pawan Kumar Bansal which went into the cash-for-questions scandal that shook Parliament in December 2005.

They are: V.K. Malhotra (Bharatiya Janata Party), Mohammad Salim (Communist Party of India-Marxist), Ram Gopal Yadav (Samajwadi Party) and C. Kuppusami (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam). Mr. Bansal is now a minister and Mr. Kishore Deo heads the Privileges Committee. The two additional members are one each from the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the BSP.

The BJP did not appear to be very enthusiastic about the quick decision taken by the Speaker to set up a parliamentary committee to look into the cash-for-votes scandal that erupted in the Lok Sabha on July 22 during the debate on the motion of confidence moved by the Prime Minister.

Mr. Malhotra confirmed to The Hindu that he had been contacted by the Lok Sabha Secretariat. He said that it would not have mattered had the setting up of the committee been delayed by a few days, but the formality of asking political parties to nominate their representatives should have been met. Mr. Malhotra hinted that the BJP would consider “whether we want to serve at all on this committee”.

Many of the other members on the committee were not in Delhi and could not be contacted.

On Friday evening, there were reports that the CNN IBN had in fact decided to telecast the “tapes” allegedly showing the act of cash-giving to Ashok Arkal, but by Saturday morning it was stated on behalf of the channel that it stood by the statement already made by its head, Rajdeep Sardesai, that the tapes were with the Speaker and “there was no question of telecasting the footage” since it had also become the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.

It was reiterated that the channel had started investigations to cover publicly made allegations of money changing hands across parties ahead of the trust vote.

It will now be up to the Speaker, who was given the raw unedited tapes, to hand over the material to the inquiry committee as soon as it meets to arrive at some sort of conclusion.

Lok Sabha sources revealed that the security gadgets installed in Parliament may be able to pick up details of who carried the bags full of currency notes into the Parliament House on July 22.

There is also the view being expressed that the committee would be able to get evidence from Madhya Pradesh police personnel reportedly posted outside Mr. Argal’s official residence in Delhi on the day the cash was allegedly given to him by the bribe-giver.

The government also seems to be making attempts to find out from where such large sums of cash were drawn, if at all these were drawn from a bank or several banks, but that, it is said, can only be ascertained once the bundles of cash become available for inspection by the inquiry committee.

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