'WikiLeaks exposure vindicated our stand', Naidu

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Senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday said that a recent expose by WikiLeaks has "vindicated" his party's stand that opposition MPs were "bribed" to win vote of confidence by UPA in 2008.

Speaking to reporters here, Naidu said the UPA government has lost "moral authority" to continue even for a minute as the disclosure by WikiLeaks provided additional "evidence" in the cash-for-vote scam.

Demanding immediate resignation of Prime Minister, Naidu said "it is now conclusively established that some Opposition parties and its MPs were lured and bribed. It (the UPA government) should step down as there was no other way", he said.

Referring to Kishore Chandra Deo committee constituted to probe the alleged cash-for-votes scam Naidu said the UPA did not "bother" to conduct a thorough probe into it.

"The UPA government survived on the strength of a political sin", he said.

On July 22, 2008, the day the UPA government won the trust vote, three BJP MPs Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bagora had brought a bag full of currency notes inside the Lok Sabha and alleged that it was given to them to vote in favour of the UPA.

Meanwhile, the Central government on Friday said it had acted on the recommendations of the Kishore Chandra Deo committee which looked into the cash-for-votes scam and a case under Prevention of Corruption Act was registered.

Sources said the then Speaker Somnath Chatterjee gave the Deo report to Union home ministry which entrusted the investigations with Delhi police’s crime branch.

The crime branch had registered a case against three persons — Sanjeev Saxena, Sohail Hindustani and Sudheendra Kulkarni — in connection with the incident and was investigating the case.