Demanding the immediate release of his aide, Sudheendra Kulkarni, arrested in the cash-for-vote scam, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani said the arrest of the whistle-blowers in the scandal provoked him to undertake Jan Chetna Yatra.
Concluding his yatra in Virudhunagar district here on Friday, he said that in democratic countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the governments gave legal protection to people who exposed wrongdoings. But in India, where the government proposed to bring in the Whistleblowers Protection Act, instead of arresting those who gave bribes, it had arrested those who exposed the scam.
Mr. Advani recalled that the Congress, which was reduced to a minority after the Communist parties withdrew support to the Manmohan Singh government, tried to purchase Opposition members by giving them huge sums of money. “Nineteen MPs cross-voted, betraying their parties, and voted for the Congress.”
He said the former BJP MPs and Mr. Kulkarni saved democracy (by exposing the act in Parliament). “They should be hailed and not jailed.”
Pointing out that only those from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam were arrested in the 2G spectrum allocation scam, Mr. Advani said many senior Congress Ministers had endorsed what had been done by the DMK Ministers. “Why no investigation is being made into the role of the Congress leaders?” he asked.
Mr. Advani, who stopped at Krishnankoil and Srivilliputtur too to address the public, said the response to his yatra was stupendous. Twenty years ago, India had a great reputation as a vibrant democracy, and it was growing in such a manner that it would emerge as a great economic power.
But now, the conduct of the UPA government, during whose tenure many scams and scandals had broken out, had lowered the country's dignity in the eyes of the world.
He demanded that the government reveal the names of those who had black money stashed away in foreign banks. The black money kept in foreign banks amounted to Rs. 25 lakh crore, he said; if it was brought back, all the six lakh villages in the country would get all amenities.
