Mishra claims he funded Joshi's poll campaigns

Days after withdrawing from the Rajya Sabha race in Jharkhand, NRI businessman Anshuman Mishra claimed to CNN-IBN on Friday that senior BJP leader and Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Murli Manohar Joshi met some 2G spectrum case accused in his presence.

Days after withdrawing from the Rajya Sabha race in Jharkhand, NRI businessman Anshuman Mishra claimed to CNN-IBN on Friday that senior BJP leader and Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Murli Manohar Joshi met some 2G spectrum case accused in his presence.

He also claimed that he had been a fund raiser for the BJP since 1994 and had contributed to Joshi’s 2004 and 2009 poll campaigns.

“Dr Joshi met 2G accused accused in my presence. If he would openly deny it I'm ready for any probe... I don't know whether it was quid pro quo or just to get briefed about the 2G scam. But he met few very senior functionaries of these companies…,” Mishra said.

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Joshi, however, denied Mishra's allegations: "I will co-operate with the agencies and I contradict the allegations. I deny it. I never asked for funds from anybody like him."

The senior BJP leader said that everybody knew the 2G probe was impartial and fair, and rubbished Mishra’s charges as fabricated and wrong.

Mishra had claimed support of BJP MLAs in Jharkhand in his RS bid — he is believed to have enlisted the support of local BJP, JMM, and it was Arjun Munda and Hemant Soren who reportedly met BJP chief Nitin Gadkari to seek alliance MLAs’ vote for him.

However, Yashwant Sinha had questioned why the BJP should support him.