Yashwant distressed by BJP’s ‘Op Kamal’

Bhopal, July 14 The Opposition’s presidential candidate and erstwhile Union Finance minister Yashwant Sinha expressed distress on Thursday over a media report that the BJP is allegedly eyeing the Congress’ tribal legislators, in the run-up to the election for the republic’s highest office, for the purpose of cross-voting.
“I have also heard from credible sources that huge sums of money are being offered to non-BJP MLAs to vote for the party’s candidate… This clearly means that ‘Operation Kamal’ is now being put into effect. It also shows that the BJP has become fearful of the outcome of a free and fair poll. I urge the Election Commission and also the Rajya Sabha Secretary General, who is the Returning Officer, to probe the reported corrupt practices of the ruling party. Op Kamal has become synonymous with dirty political corruption. It has been used to engineer defections in Opposition parties and even to topple state governments. Apart from Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has used it to dislodge Opposition governments in Karnataka, Goa, Arunachal Pradesh and most recently in Maharashtra. In all this, I hear alarm bells for democracy in India. The BJP regime’s latest attack on democracy is to declare that words like ‘corrupt’, ‘jumlajeevi’ and ‘betrayal’ are unparliamentary. I condemn this idiotic decision. If honest debate is barred in Parliament, why not close Parliament altogether?” he said in a statement while on a visit here.