The nation woke up to a shocking news when the people of India saw on small screen their Members of Parliament taking bribe for the most sacred duty of raising questions in Lok Sabha. The Aaj Tak TV channel bared 10 members of Lok Sabha and one member of Rajya Sabha one by one while taking bribe to the tune of thousands of rupees from the channel's under cover reporters.
The channel began the telecast of sting operation, carried out by cobrapost.com, aptly called as “Operation Duryodhan”. The channel Aaj Tak, a subsidiary of India Today publications, showed 11 Members of Parliament of various parties, except the Leftists, taking bribes.
The MPs involved are Ramsewak Singh of Congress (Gwalior), Narendra Kushwaha of BSP, Anna Saheb M. K. Patil of BJP (Erandol, Maharashtra), Manoj Kumar of RJD (Palamau, Jharkhand), Suresh Chandel of BJP (Hamipur, HP), Pradeep Gandhi of BJP (Rajanandgaon, Chattisgarh), Chatrapal Singh Lodha of BJP (Orissa), Rajaram Pal of BSP (Bilhaur, UP), Y. G. Mahajan of BJP (Jalgaon, Maharashtra), Chandra Pratap Singh of BJP (Sidhi, MP) and Lal Chandra of BSP (Robertsgunj, UP).
The telecast showed video clippings of the MPs accepting bribes of various sums ranging from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 1.10 lakh, given to them by the reporter on various dates between April and December. The entire operation was held for a duration of nine months from April 25, having 56 hours of video, 60 hours of audio and 900 phone call recordings.
"We have great respect for the institution of the Parliament. This report is in public interest. Most of the MPs whom we contacted were found to raise questions in the Lok Sabha in public interest. But there are some who accepted bribes to perform their duty as an elected representative, tarnishing the image of the Parliament," says the report.
Modus operandi:
A fictitious company called North India Small Manufacturers' Association (NISMA) was formed. Anirudh Bahal of cobrapost.com posed as the Executive Director of NISMA and another reporter Suhasini Raj posed as the NISMA's representative.
They got to meet most of the MPs at their residences in North Avenue, New Delhi through some middlemen, one of them being a staff of the Parliament House, responsible for assigning the questions to be tabled in the House.
Each MP was given a list of issues to be raised in the House, of which only a few were tabled.
The questions were on different subjects like allotting site for Research and Development Centre for a small scale industry, SEBI, GATT, control of drug prices, removal of the VAT, etc.
To authenticate the report, it was mentioned that the Union Minister of State for Rural Industries Mahabeer Prasad had replied to two questions in the Lok Sabha (Q. no's 21 and 294) on July 26 last, out of the 15 questions given to the MP to be raised. Anna Saheb Patil, the BJP MP from Maharashtra, went a step ahead and gave the reporter a copy of the form on which the questions to be raised can be written and directly submitted to the House.
He also allegedly asked for a monthly payment of Rs. 40,000 as retainer to continue his services of raising questions in the Parliament and then demanded an additional Rs. 50,000 for involving other MPs in the issue to be raised, to show a vociferous support in the Sessions.
BJP suspends 6 MPs:
The BJP has suspended six MPs from its Parliamentary Party after they were caught on camera taking bribes for raising questions in the House. A meeting of the party top leaders decided to suspend one Rajya Sabha MP and five Lok Sabha members who were seen taking bribes for asking questions in Parliament in a secretly shot videotape broadcast by Aaj Tak.
Talking to newspersons, BJP President L. K. Advani said it was a serious issue at a time when the country was debating about cleanliness in public life. Advani said he had spoken to Lok Sabha Speaker Somanath Chatterjee about referring the matter to the Privileges Committee of Parliament. He said party leaders in Delhi had decided on the issue and received the approval of senior leader and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
