The Delhi High Court's grant of bail to the former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) adviser, Sudheendra Kulkarni, and two former BJP MPs, Mahavir Singh Bhagora and Faggan Singh Kulaste, in the cash-for-votes scam case has come as a shot-in-the-arm for the party and given it a reason to seek an apology from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
On Sunday, BJP party president Nitin Gadkari cited the bail as a good enough reason for eliciting an apology from Dr. Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi. He said the “innocent whistle-blowers” in the 2008 scam were needlessly sent to jail and the nation deserved an apology for the same.
UPA inertia
Alleging the complicity of Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram in the multi-crore 2G spectrum scam, for which the former Union Minister, A. Raja, is now serving time in prison, Mr. Gadkari accused the Congress-led government of not taking action against their own. He said the Manmohan Singh government “lacks credibility, political will and leadership” and attacked the Prime Minister for being “weak.”
“We feel sorry for the PM, whom nobody listens to. The financial condition of the country is bad, inflation is at a high of 12 per cent, food grains are rotting while the poor go hungry,” Mr. Gadkari said, speaking at the Ramlila Maidan on the final day of party leader L.K. Advani's Jan Chetna Yatra.
‘Lack of leadership'
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley accused the United Progressive Alliance of suffering from a “credibility crisis.” He said the series of scams starting with the 2G spectrum were reasons for the government losing its credibility and being an indicator of lack of leadership within the ruling coalition.
He referred to the country's poor economic status and said investors both from within the country and outside were unwilling to put in their money in India. Accusing the Centre of failing to protect the whistleblowers, he said the government was instead trying to shield its own corruption and instead pin the blame on the Opposition. He said that when the “whistle blowers” in the cash-for-votes scam were arrested, the judiciary as well as the common man wanted to know why they were being made “scapegoats.”
‘Insensitive'
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, for her part, criticised the “insensitive government” for not being able to contain inflation that has left the common man unhappy and cautioned that after Parliament, the struggle against the “corrupt government” will hit the streets.
Ms. Swaraj referred to the escalating costs of food items and essentials and the impact it had had on the common man. She blamed the Centre for being unable to keep in check the prices of essential food items as well as of cooking fuels.
She accused Dr. Singh of leading the “most corrupt government” and attacked him for shifting the “onus of scams on his colleagues.”
