U Anand Kumar/ENS
New Delhi, Aug 5: Reflecting on the new realities in the political firmament in the run-up to the general elections, leaders of three rival parties — the SP, the RJD, and the LJP — came together on Monday to release a fresh CD to claim that the BJP had ‘stage-managed’ the ‘cash for votes’ scam during the trust vote for political gains.
Addressing a joint press conference, Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and Amar Singh chorused: “Look who is the thief?”
Claiming that the CD had come in an envelope to Amar Singh’s residence, Mulayam Singh said all the claims of the BJP leaders had been proved wrong.
“BJP leaders understood that they would not get a majority in parliament on July 22. So they did this to make it an issue for the elections,” he said.
Alleging that BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley had a crucial role in the scam, Mulayam Singh said, “We are shocked that a person like Arun Jaitley would do something like this, this is equal to hiding crime.”
“When some people allegedly visited the BJP MPs’ house to deliver money, why was it not handed over to the police? Finger printing tests could have led to some evidence,” he said.
Coming to the rescue of Amar Singh, Paswan said, “BJP leaders claim they received a call asking them to come in the morning. But why did they go? Why didn’t they get them arrested and call up the Lok Sabha Speaker when the men came to give them the money?”
Lalu Prasad reiterated his demand for a narco-analysis of the three BJP MPs and said there was no evidence in the CD that proved the involvement of Amar Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel.
The CD shows sting operations on Faggan Singh Kulaste, one of the three BJP MPs allegedly approached with bribe, and Sanjiv Saxena, who had earlier worked with the SP.
Amar Singh said Saxena had never worked with him and was with Shahid Siddiqui who joined the BSP recently. The CD was presented to Kishore Chandra Dev Committee.