BJP, Cong in privilege motion slugfest

The government-Opposition confrontation on Wikileaks threatens to worsen with BJP planning to bring a breach of privilege motion against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Vikas Pathak and Saroj Nagi report.

The government-Opposition confrontation on Wikileaks threatens to worsen with BJP planning to bring a breach of privilege motion against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

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The Congress is also threatening a similar one against Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj.

The BJP said it would bring such a motion against the Prime Minister for "misleading'' Parliament with his statement that no bribe was paid to MPs ahead of the July 2008 trust vote, and a Parliamentary Committee had found the evidence insufficient to come to any conclusion.

This, alleged Swaraj and her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley, contradicted the findings of the parliamentary probe committee that there was exchange of money. Jaitley said, Singh "was not economical with the truth but completely at variance with the truth."

He said the majority view of the report - even if the minority view of Opposition MPs that bribes were paid was left out - was that alleged Amar Singh aide Sanjeev Saxena, who "paid" the money, "was a bribe-giver wittingly or unwittingly".

The BJP leaders said the PM and the UPA were the principal beneficiaries of cross voting.

“Under the law of criminal jurisprudence, being a beneficiary of this offence he is equally liable," said Swaraj.

She also attacked the PM’s statement that people had rejected the Opposition — which had made the bribery allegations one of its election planks — in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls: “If we buy this absurd argument, a new chapter will be added to the criminalisation of politics. Should all those charges with rape or murder be acquitted if they win polls?”

The Congress however dismissed the charge that the PM had committed any breach of privilege. The ruling party is also getting ready to hit back.

At least three Congress MPs have sought the government's permission to give notice for breach of privilege against Swaraj. Their charge: she had defied the speaker's ruling and continued to insist on a clarification from the PM.