Bhartiya Janata Party veteran leader Lal Krishna Advani on Saturday blasted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for putting up "indefensible defence" of bribery his Congress Party paid to survive the trust vote in the Lok Sabha in July 2008, in the wake of the WikiLeaks expose by citing the 2009 elections as the answer to the charge.
Ridiculing him for claiming that the expose carries same "old charges that were debated, discussed and rejected by the people of India," Advani asks: "Since when has an election victory come to be regarded as
exoneration of crimes committed by the victor before his election?"
In his latest blog, he refers to the PM's statement in Parliament on Friday as, "making a frantic but futile effort to whitewash the biggest scandal that has taken place in independent India - the Cash for Votes Scam," and asks him to answer the questions pointed five posers by Opposition leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, particularly since he is the principal beneficiary of succeeding in the confidence vote.
The posers are to expose his lie that a parliamentary inquiry failed to come to any conclusion for want of evidence on three BJP members of Parliament tabling bundles of money given to them just before the trust vote was taken up.
Advani draws the people's attention to a preposterous thesis Manmohan Singh has propounded in this statement and would like Congressmen to question him about his claim that the people responded to these
allegations made on the day of voting with more seats to Congress and less to BJP and Left in the 2009 elections.
"All political analysts will readily accept that the core issue in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections in which Rajiv Gandhi lost to Vishwanath Pratap Singh was the Bofors Guns Scandal. And no one can forget that Rajiv Gandhi who in 1984 had secured an all time record of 415 Lok Sabha seats slumped to just 197 seats in 1989, that is less than half !
"After this new thesis put forth by Dr Manmohan Singh to claim that the people of India have endorsed his brazen bribery shenanigans, does he realise that by the same logic the 1989 verdict of the Lok Sabha
would mean that the Indian electorate had pronounced Rajiv Gandhi guilty in the Bofors scandal," Advani asked.
Stressing that there seems "no limits to brazenness" in the PM's stand on buying the MPs for survival of his government, the BJP veteran said two WikiLeaks-based reports published in The Hindu in a single week
gravely undermine his position in national politics.
The first report quotes American ambassador Timothy Roemer concluding after meeting then National Security Adviser M K Narayanan that the PM has "great belief" in talks with Pakistan, but he is isolated within his own government and even the NSA did not agree with him.
"I believe that if on issues related with terrorism, like Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, evaluation were to be made of Indian public opinion, Dr Manmohan Singh would be discovered isolated not only in his own Government but even among the people," Advani affirmed, pointing out that it was the second report that was a "wikibomb" on the MPs bribed to buy their votes.
He then goes on to quote another BJP veteran and former foreign minister Jaswant Singh from his speech in the Lok Sabha early this week during debate on the budgetary demands of the external affairs ministry, in which he brings out how the United Progressive Alliance government is pursuing the United States policy. Here runs the quote:
"Whether it is Pakistan or Afghanistan, our policy is no longer ours. That Pakistan is essential to the US. policy is a given. You do not have to even debate it. I remember very well, Sir. I was already out of
South Block and in the North Block when we had a visitor.
"I do not know whether I should name him or not. He was a U.S. official. His body was that of a body builder. He came to meet me in the ministry of finance. I then told him that I have no anger against you. But you have greatly misjudged (us)."
"If I had anything to do with the management of India's policy, I shall never-ever ask the United States of America for anything as far as Pakistan is concerned. This is on record. This, Sir, was not a boast. I was then a representative of India.
" I appeal to you not to bank on the United States of America because we will find an answer left to ourselves. But you will never find an answer if you try and find answers through the United States of America."
