(ReportPress.com) - The leaders of India's Left parties - Communist Party of India (CPI-Marxist), Communist Party of India (CPI), All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) - met on 23 July 2008 in India. They have issued the following statement:
The Manmohan Singh Government has won the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha but the entire country has witnessed how parliamentary democracy has been subverted. [Votes: 275-256 (10 abstentions) out of total 543 current members of the Indian Parliament's House of the People]. Reports of bribery, intimidation and horse-trading have been proved true by the cross-voting and abstentions engineered by the [Indian National] Congress [INC] and the Samajwadi Party [SP]. It is by such means that they got a majority. In this connection, the [video] tape submitted by a television channel about a bribery [cash- for-vote or money-for-abstention] episode [3 BJP MPs reportedly bribed by the INC and the SP officials] should be made public.
The Congress leadership is mistaken if it considers this vote as one that has provided legitimacy to the [Singh] Government. The moral authority of the government has been compromised. The debate in the Lok Sabha has shown up the sharp division on the [India-USA] nuclear deal. This is no mandate for going ahead with the deal.
The Left parties will continue the struggle against the Indo-US nuclear deal. They will step up their opposition to the anti-people policies of the Congress-led Government and strive to build the widest movement against the failure of the government to tackle price rise, the problems of the farmers and the rural poor due to the agrarian crisis. The Left parties will join hands with other like-minded parties to take up these issues.
The Left parties decided to extend their full support to the call of the central trade unions for a general strike on August 20, 2008. They appealed to all sections of the working people to participate and join the strike.
Meantime, the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India
(CPI-Marxist) has unanimously decided to expel Somnath Chatterjee [CPIM Speaker of Indian Parliament's House of the People from Bolpur, West Bengal, India] from the membership of the Party with immediate effect. This action has been taken under Article XIX, Clause 13 of the Party Constitution for seriously compromising the position of the Party.
Advani Demands Probe into Alleged Bribery to BJP MPs
NEW DELHI, India, 22 July 2008 (PTI) - Senior BJP [Bharatiya (Indian) Janata (Peoples) Party] leader L.K. Advani today demanded a detailed investigation by the Lok Sabha Speaker into allegations that three of his [BJP] MPs were offered Rs. nine crore by Samajwadi Party [SP] [and Indian National Congress (INC)] for abstaining during the trust vote.
"On the basis of whatever happened (on the floor of the House), we can demand from the Speaker, that as the issue is so serious, that a detailed investigation should be done," Advani told reporters here.
Advani's demand came shortly after unprecedented scenes were witnessed in the Lok Sabha when a BJP MP waved in the well of the House wads of currency notes offered as a bribe.
He claimed that the three BJP MPs - Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bagora - were offered Rs. three crore each and were handed over Rs. one crore each in advance. Terming the incident as a breach of privilege, the Leader of Opposition said the MPs were given the money for abstaining from the voting during the trust vote.
"In my own whole life I have not come across such a sad event. We had received information yesterday and today. This is shameful," he said.
Advani noted that he had hinted about horse-trading in his speech yesterday while some Left members openely spoke about such things in the House.
He said three BJP MPs came to him yesterday saying that they were offered Rs. three crore each for "only abstaining" during the voting.
"Rs. one crore was given in advance and the rest was to be given later," he claimed.
"They asked me whether they can produce the money in House. I said it is normally not allowed. But the kind of scandal it is I thought the House will at least be adjourned," he said.
NEW DELHI, India, 22 July 2008 (PTI) - The three BJP MPs who suprised everybody by tabling Rs. one crore in the Lok Sabha today named SP MP Reoti Raman Singh and SP General Secretary Amar Singh for striking a deal with them and giving them the cash.
"We were contacted on Monday and told the deal would be struck in Le Meridian hotel here but that could not take place. Later, SP MP Reoti Raman Singh came to meet us at 12:30 a.m. at 4, Ferozshah Road and said please come with me to Amar Singh's house where the deal would be finalised," Fagan Singh Kulaste told reporters.
Kulaste, along with Mahavir Bhagore and Ashok Argal, emptied a bag with Rs. one crore in cash in the Lok Sabha today and claimed this money was given as advance to them to abstain from voting. The house on Ferozshah Road is occupied by Argal.
"In the morning today, Ahmed Patel (INC) discussed the deal with us.
Thereafter, we went with Reoti Raman Singh to Amar Singh's house where he offered us Rs. three crore - Rs. one crore each as advance - there and then. But, we refused to take the money and said it should be delivered at 4, Ferozshah Road," Kulaste said.
"About twenty minutes later a man came to the residence with two bags full of cash and put it on the table. I asked him to open the bags to show whether the cash was real or fake. Then he took out Rs. one crore in cash," said Mahavir Bhagora, another BJP MP who had displayed the wads in the House.
"A man telephoned Amar Singh who told me this money is an advance for the deal," Argal said.
(ReportPress.com) - List of BJP members of the Lok Sabha who are being expelled from the Party for violating the Party whip on the trust vote [of 22 July 2008 held in the House of the People of India's
Parliament]:
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