NEW DELHI – A United States Embassy employee witnessed piles of bank notes being prepared to bribe Indian MPs ahead of a crucial 2008 vote of confidence in parliament, leaked diplomatic cables alleged on Thursday. Opposition parties held protests in both houses of parliament demanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government resign over the claims, the latest in a string of damaging graft accusations.
The US staffer in New Delhi was shown “two chests containing cash” by an aide to a senior ruling-party politician and was also told $25 million was “lying around” to ensure the Congress-led government would survive the vote.Diplomatic messages released by WikiLeaks to The Hindu newspaper described how Nachiketa Kapur, identified as an aide to prominent Congress figure Satish Sharma, said $2.5 million had bought the votes of four MPs.
The alleged incident occurred shortly before Singh narrowly survived the confidence vote over a controversial deal to allow India to buy US nuclear reactors and fuel. Singh’s Congress-led coalition was re-elected in 2009, but has recently become mired by scandals ranging from the cut-price sale of telecoms licences to graft surrounding last year’s Commonwealth Games. Kapur “showed the embassy employee two chests containing cash and said that around $25 million was lying around the house for use as pay-offs”, according to the WikiLeaks cable.
Both Kapur and Sharma, a close associate of Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, protested their innocence. On Thursday, Opposition BJP leader Arun Jaitley said, “It is conclusively clear that this government survived on political and moral sin…it has no authority to even continue for one minute.”
