BJP offered bribe to Congress MLAs to switch sides in Gujarat: Congress

KEY STORY

• The Congress on Sunday alleged that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) offered monetary and other inducements to its legislators in Gujarat to switch sides, and demanded a judicial inquiry into the matter.

• Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi claimed that Akshay Patel, Pradyumnsinh Jadeja and J V Kakadiya, who joined the BJP in June this year after resigning from the Congress, had purportedly accepted on camera to have been offered inducements for switching over.

• He cited their interviews to the media to allege the BJP had offered them monetary or other inducements to woo them to their side. The three have been fielded by the BJP in Gujarat for the upcoming by-polls.

  “The legislature, it is clear from these proofs, has become a pawn, a business plaything for the BJP, which aggressively indulges in the 3Ts — Trading, Trafficking and Transaction-ing with MLAs and legislators,” Singhvi said.

  Five of the eight Congress legislators have got tickets from the BJP for the forthcoming bypolls, he added.

  “The issue at all is not whether he accepted it or took the bribe or not. Obviously, those speaking have denied it. The issue is the true colours of the offeror, the true moral constitutional and legal level, political level at which the offeror is functioning, namely the BJP,” Singhvi said about Patel.

  “The true issue is about the limitless capacity of this party to offer money. I repeat – limitless capacity, matched only by their limitless greed for power by hook or by crook, more by crook, less by hook,” he said.

CONCLUSION

• The Congress leader alleged that the BJP ensures the election mandate, which is the constitutional and democratic mandate, is actually a mandate for only two or three years. “It is curtailed, interrupted, obstructed to 2-3 years by ‘A’ large sums of money, ‘B’ large number of resignations, ‘C’, re-offering of ministerships and ‘D’, offering of MLA tickets,” he alleged.

• Singhvi alleged that this is the political morality practiced by the ruling party at the Centre and in Gujarat.

  “You (BJP) create an artificial majority, an artificial majority is negation of the democracy, which functions on majority, true majorities and you do it by the naked use of monetary power,” he said.

• The Congress spokesperson demanded a Supreme Court sitting judge probe into the matter or at least by a sitting Chief Justice of a High Court at the minimum.

• There should be an immediate registration of a Prevention of Corruption Act, FIR and related sections of the Indian penal codes on the criminal sides, he said.