Sinha writes to EC, wants CBI probe into RS polls

Congratulating Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi for scrapping the Jharkhand Rajya Sabha poll, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha called for a CBI inquiry into the whole poll process.

Congratulating Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi for scrapping the Jharkhand Rajya Sabha poll, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha called for a CBI inquiry into the whole poll process.

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“Jharkhand has emerged as the happy hunting ground for unscrupulous money-bags who have correctly assessed the moral fiber or lack of it amongst the political parties of Jharkhand and its legislators,” Sinha wrote. “They have come here with their money bags and bought their way to Rajya Sabha.”

Saying that the seizure of cash from a car proved that “money was being used freely for these elections,” he asked for an investigation of all the MLAs who agreed to sign the nomination papers of independent candidates.

Significantly, the poll papers of the independent candidate RK Agrawal — from whose brother’s car R2.15 crore was recovered, leading to the poll being countermanded — were reportedly signed by JMM MLAs. The BJP leader called for scrutiny of election expenditure and barring all candidates and proposers guilty of malpractice from polls for the “longest permissible time”.

Sinha was scathing in his criticism of the “dilution” of the original vision on which RS was formed. He said the upper house was envisaged as the Council of States, “the law was amended to make a person eligible to contest RS polls from any state irrespective of whether he belonged to the state or not”.