That the Bhartiya Janata Party planned the sting operation which CNN-IBN did was a public knowledge since August 2008 when it was first reported in Pratham Pravakta, a Hindi magazine. But the tale of sting is getting interesting day by day.
Tehelka has implied that the entire operation was not a sting but an attempt of top BJP leadership to entrap the ruling party into buying BJP MPs for votes. BJP has rejected the charge.
Let’s go back in time. Just before the vote and after the Left parties withdrew support to the UPA government, there were allegations that MPs were being bought to save the Indo-US nuclear deal and the government. The recently released Wikileaks cables have revealed a conversation between a close aide of Captain Satish Sharma, a Congress Party MP in the Rajya Sabha and close to Gandhi family, with a US embassy official. It states: “Sharma’s political aide Nachiketa Kapur mentioned to an Embassy staff member in an aside on July 16 that Ajit Singh’s RLD had been paid Rupees 10 crore (about $2.5 million) for each of their f our MPs to support the government. Kapur mentioned that money was not an issue at all, but the crucial thing was to ensure that those who took the money would vote for the government. Kapur showed the Embassy employee two chests containing cash and said that around Rupees 50-60 crore (about $25 million) was lying around the house for use as pay-offs.”
So with the allegations of MPs being offered cash in the air, the BJP decided to put the government on the mat. The party’s top leadership decided to hand over the operation (whistle-blowing operation according to the BJP) to a news channel and, according to Tehelka, approached the ruling party to buy their votes. The sting failed to trap the Congress leaders (there are still doubts about Ahmed Patel) but it did trap Samajwadi party leaders.
I have just one question: If Tehelka, on leads that there was corruption in defence industry, can entrap political leaders and army officials by bribing them with cash (even prostitutes), then what is wrong with a political party planning a sting operation with a TV channel in the light of alleged attempts of buying of MPs by the ruling party, which was corroborated by the Wikileaks cable. Although both the issues are different the premise on which the sting operations are done is similar. There are leads and they are pursued.
Tehelka’s report by its correspondent, apart from bringing new facts to light, seems like a desperate attempt to defend the Congress party.
Horse-trading and buying of elected representatives has been allegedly going on in the Indian polity since a long time. The entire controversy was used by political parties (BJP, Congress) and media outlets (CNN-IBN, Tehelka) to mislead the people of this country.
What was even more strange was the fact that Home Minister P Chidambaram was flashing a Tehelka copy in the Parliament to put forward his argument that BJP was behind the sting. As mentioned at the onset, the details about BJP’s involvement surfaced in 2008, and Delhi Police, which was investigating the matter, is under the Home Ministry. Is the Delhi Police so incompetent that it has to depend on a media outlet to investigate facts that were already in the public domain?
The timing of the so-called expose is highly suspicious as it comes on a day when the PM was facing the privilege motion in the House over the cash-for-votes scam.
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