Singh, Patel given clean chit in cash-for-vote scam

In want of any evidence in the cash-for-vote scam, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and Congress MP Ahmad Patel were given a clean chit on Monday by a Lok Sabha Committee probing into the allegations made by Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party that its leaders were bribed to abstain during the trust vote facing by UPA on July 22.

The seven-member parliamentary committee headed by Congress' V Kishore Chandra S. Deo said that there was no case against Patel and no clinching evidence against Amar Singh to back the charge of the three BJP MPs- Ashok Argal, Mahavir Bhagora and Faggan Singh Kulaste.

Not a single evidence either in the page or in any of the deposition made by the witness who appeared before the committee which may prove Patel and Singh’s involvement in the alleged offer of money, the so-called cash-for-vote scam, to the complainant, the panel said in its 466-page report.

“As there is no clinching evidence against Patel and Singh, there is no occasion for the Committee or the House to make a request to Rajya Sabha requiring them to appear before the inquiry committee for evidence,” the committee said.

The Committee unequivocally said with regards to Patel that the alleged complicity in the whole episode was based entirely on presumptions and surmises; and about Singh, the report stated there was no clinching evidence to prove that the wads of notes brandished ahead of the trust vote in the Lok Sabha were actually sent by Amar Singh.

The Committee, however, recommended that a probe by an appropriate investigating agency be conducted into the roles of Sanjeev Saxena, the alleged aide of Singh, Suhail Hindustani and Sudheendra Kulkarni, an aide of BJP leader L K Advani.

The seven-member Committee was constituted by Speaker Somnath Chatterjee after the three BJP MPs stunned the House on July 22 by waving bundles of notes amounting to Rs 3 crore, alleging that the bribe were given to them by Ahmad Patel and Amar Singh for remaining abstain from the House in support of the government during the confidence motion.

The duo had denied the charge in the media.