Will look into sting on RS polls: Quraishi

Tue, Aug 3 05:28 AM
Expressing shock over a private television channel's sting operation showing some Jharkhand MLAs willing to swap their votes in the Rajya Sabha polls for money, Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi on Monday promised to look into the conduct of the legislators.

The CEC said he was shocked, but not surprised by the manner in which the MLAs were shown willing to accept money.

Senior Congress leader K Kesava Rao, who is in charge of Jharkhand, promised action against the erring party legislators while CPM Politburo member Brinda Karat announced that her party would raise the issue in Parliament.

The TV expose, carried out by IBN and Cobrapost last month, depicted MLAs purportedly seeking Rs 1 crore each from the reporters, who, posing as middlemen, solicited votes for a candidate for an Upper House seat. The sting operation coincided with the biennial polls for the Rajya Sabha. The reporters recorded their conversations with MLAs on hidden cameras at different hotels of Ranchi over a month.

One particular MLA belonging to the Congress claimed he could mobilise the support of a total of 10 party legislators while a JMM MLA claimed he could fix four-five MLAs. Yet another MLA, this one belonging to the BJP, asked for Rs 50 lakh and a car in exchange for his vote.

You can rest assured nothing will come out of the enquiry.
If anything does happen, the TV channel which carried out the sting operation will be punished.
We have had umpteen exposes of this kind and we know that 80 of our MLAs and MPs are corrupt to the highest level but we just have to watch them making a foll of us helplessly.
I am waiting for Swami Ramdeo, hoping that he could use a broom to sweep away the corrupt leaders.