New Delhi:
Tihar Jail in the Capital will have a high-profile visitor today. BJP's Sushma Swaraj has said she will go there at 3pm in the afternoon to meet jailed former MPs of her party.
"Going to meet Faggan Singh Kulaste, Mahavir Bhagora and Sudheendra Kulkarni in Tihar jail today at 3 pm," Ms Swaraj tweeted this morning. Mr Kulkarni is BJP's former political advisor; Mr Kulaste and Mr Bhagora are former BJP MPs. They were arrested last month in connection with what is known as the cash-for-votes scam. On Friday last week, a court in Delhi denied them bail, saying Mr Kulkarni made "an attempt to subvert the state of democracy."
In July 2008, Mr Kulkarni devised a plan to expose that the UPA government was willing to buy MPs to survive a trust vote in Parliament. He asked three MPS from his party to solicit offers from political parties. The trio found a taker -Amar Singh, according to the Delhi Police. Mr Singh was then with the Samajwadi Party; he allegedly delivered a crore to the BJP MPs via his assistant. The three BJP MPS -Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Singh Bhagora - walked into the Lok Sabha hours before the trust vote waving wads of notes.
They later said the one crore they brought to Parliament was just an advance; they had been promised nine crores for their votes. Dr Manmohan Singh survived the vote.
Mr Kulaste and Mr Bhagora were arrested on September 6 along with Mr Singh. Mr Argal has not been arrested yet because he is a serving member of the Lok Sabha and the Speaker, Meira Kumar, has to sanction action against him. Mr Singh was granted bail by the High Court in Delhi yesterday.
Mr Kulkarni was a key strategist for senior BJP leader LK Advani in 2008; he has since disassociated from the party. He says that his only agenda was to expose the UPA government's willingness to buy support to survive its trust vote. The BJP has described Mr Kulkarni and the three MPs as "whistle-blowers." A day after Mr Kulkarni was sent to jail, Mr Advani had visited him with his colleague Arun Jaitley. Mr Advani has dared the government to arrest him too. As Leader of the Opposition at the time, he has said, he was aware of his party's scheme, which included coopting a private TV channel to record on hidden camera the money being handed over to its MPs.