Less than a month after the resolution of the bitter 2G-JPC stalemate, Parliament was paralysed by an acrimonious standoff between the government and Opposition today over the disclosure, in a leaked US diplomatic cable, of an alleged attempt by the Congress to buy MPs before the July 2008 Lok Sabha trust vote.
A united Opposition said the UPA had lost its “moral authority and right” to remain in office, and the NDA demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his government. The Left parties demanded registration of a criminal case, an inquiry by the CBI, and a statement in Parliament by the PM.
The Congress put up a technical defence in the House, and later dismissed publication of the contents of the cable and the Opposition uproar as “irresponsible journalism” and “irresponsible politics”. The Opposition’s determination to press the issue was apparent when Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj led a walkout when the House met after repeated adjournments to pass the demand for grants and appropriation bill.
The cable, part of the cache of US internal diplomatic correspondence obtained by the whistleblower site WikiLeaks and published by The Hindu, described a purported incident in which Nachiketa Kapur, a “political aide” of Congress leader Capt. Satish Sharma, allegedly showed a US embassy employee “two chests containing cash and said that around Rs 50-60 crore was lying around... for use as pay-offs” to MPs.
“The Prime Minister has no moral authority or legitimacy to lead the government of the day. He must quit forthwith,” NDA working chairman L K Advani said. “The NDA demands that this government has no moral right to continue and it should quit.”
Advani, however, ruled out the possibility of bringing a no-confidence motion against the government to follow up on his demand. Top BJP sources said the demand for the PM’s resignation was intended to push the UPA — already on the defensive following multiple corruption charges — further against the wall. The BJP is not prepared for a mid-term election, they said.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley raised the issue as soon as the House met, decrying the “extraordinarily depressing situation” that he said Indian democracy had been reduced to.
“It is conclusively clear now that this government survived on the strength of a political sin, a moral sin, and has no authority, no right, to continue even for one minute,” Jaitley said.
The CPM’s Sitaram Yechury said the leaked cable was a “humongous indictment” of the government’s functioning.
“Proceed criminally on these charges. Proceed against these individuals or whatever that committee (the parliamentary panel which investigated the earlier cash-for-vote scandal, in which BJP MPs brought wads of currency notes inside the House) has found, and establish guilt. Otherwise, there is no moral ground for this government to continue,” Yechury said.
BJP leaders agreed there was enough material and contemporaneous evidence to lodge an FIR in the present case. “Even a private citizen can lodge an FIR or anybody can file a PIL on the basis of the information that has come out through the cables,” said a senior BJP leader.
In response to the Opposition attack, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was dismissive — he said the allegations pertained to the 14th Lok Sabha and could not be discussed in the current House, and that he could not confirm or deny correspondence between a sovereign government and its mission abroad.
“Each Lok Sabha is sovereign in its time. What happened in the 14th Lok Sabha cannot be decided in the 15th Lok Sabha... Whatever happened in the 14th Lok Sabha has come to an end...,” Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee asked Jaitley if he was satisfied that “whatever has appeared in newspaper report is admissible in the court of law”. Jaitley responded that “If what has appeared (in the newspaper) is correct, it is a commission of offence in India”.
Diplomatic immunity cannot be claimed for offences like “bribery” committed by Indians, he said, and added that factors like the jurisdiction of 14th Lok Sabha “do not apply when the offence was committed outside the House”.
“You are guilty of cover,” Jaitley alleged, to which Mukherjee shot back, “If you have the courage, go to court.”
In the Lok Sabha, Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj said, “This government has lost the moral right to be in office.”
“The (WikiLeaks) disclosures have shamed the country. Our democracy has been tainted. Prime Minister is sitting here, he must make a statement otherwise the Opposition will stage a walkout,” Swaraj said before the walkout in the evening.
The CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta said, “I would like to know whether the control room of the Government of India is in Delhi or in Washington?” Dasgupta demanded either a statement by the Prime Minister denying the allegations, or his resignation.
The JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav said that the fact that 19 Opposition MPs changed sides during the trust vote suggested that there had been “temptation”.
Yet, Advani said several MPs did not want to bring the government down immediately. “I or the NDA may want immediate elections. But there are MPs who would want to complete their full term,” he said.
Another BJP leader said the time wasn’t yet ripe to “get entangled in a numbers game”. “Paap ka gharaa aur bharne do.” (Let the Congress’s sins mount).
Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the Opposition was holding the country to ransom on the basis of uncorroborated “subjective information”.
“Let us understand the nature of leaks in WikiLeaks. They are like subjective information based on conversation of Mr A with Mr B as reported to Mr C referring to Mr D... There is no verification, no authentication, to suggest that this bizarre incident even happened,” Singhvi said.
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