Vote for Cash Scam – “In this country, you can kill anybody, but you cannot kill the truth”

“In this country, you can kill anybody, but you cannot kill the truth” – this was the response by BJP on Supreme Court’s intervention and strong stricture to Delhi police on their 3 years of inaction on Cash for vote scam.

The first arrest in the cash for vote scam was made on Sunday (within 48 hours of Supreme Court pulling Delhi Police) with the Delhi police picking up Sanjeev Saxena, believed to be a close aide of former Samajwadi Party MP Amar Singh. Supreme Court pulled the Delhi police for not making any progress in the case and terming it as inefficient and directionless.

“The Manmohan Singh-led Congress government today stands exposed for converting a minority into a majority by luring MPs of other political parties in lieu of cash and latest court rule has exposed Congress party’s protection of corrupt,”, said BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar.

Demanding a fair, speedy and impartial probe into the cash-for-vote scam, he said the real face of the government is now coming out before everyone. The BJP leader hoped, “I am sure if the inquiry is conducted in an impartial manner and speedily, it will expose the relationship between Sanjeev Saxena and Amar Singh .

Javadekar said, “The police and the government must do their job honestly and with speed and we are very sure, the truth will emerge. We welcome that truth has come out, but only after the Supreme Court intervened”.

What is cash for vote scam

Notes-for-vote or cash-for-votes scandal is an alleged scandal in which the United Progressive Alliance, the majority-holding parliamentary-party alliance of India led by Manmohan Singh, openly bribed Indian MPs in cash or currency-notes to the tune of multi-millions to survive its very first confidence vote on 22 July 2008 in the Lok Sabha after the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front withdrew support from the government over India approaching the IAEA for Indo-US nuclear deal.

The historic win was marred when three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmakers waved bundles of cash, 30 million rupees (715,000 dollars) amid accusations of vote-buying. Speaker Somnath Chatterjee asked New Delhi’s police chief to investigate the bribery issues.

BJP also demanded the resignation of Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh over allegations the government was bribing MPs to survive a vote of confidence in Parliament.

Evidence

The BJP also offered fresh “documentary evidence” or video-tapes to back up its charge that three of its MPs were bribed to save the Manmohan Singh government during the trust vote.

BJP also criticised the TV channel CNN-IBN for not telecasting an undercover operation that videotaped alleged bribery.

The unedited tapes are now with Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, and a seven-member committee is investigating the cash-for-votes scandal[5]. The tapes were aired on August 12, 2008.

On March 17, 2011 WikiLeaks revealed that the U.S. – India Nuclear deal was done by cash-for-votes in 2008. The Hindu reports: “Five days before the Manmohan Singh government faced a crucial vote of confidence on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal in 2008, a political aide to Congress leader Satish Sharma showed a U.S. Embassy employee “two suitcases containing cash” he said was part of a bigger fund of Rs. 50 crore ($13 million) to Rs. 60 crore ($15 million) that the party had assembled to purchase the support of MPs.

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