UPA conducts its own sting to counter BJP attack

New Delhi, Aug 4 (UNI) The UPA today sought to counter the NDA's attack on it over the cash-for-vote scam by releasing a CD of another sting carried out on BJP MP Faggan Singh Kulaste allegedly containing his voice.

The CD was released at a joint press conference held by UPA leaders Ram Vilas Paswan and Lalu Prasad along with Samajwadi Party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh.

The leaders said the July 22 episode in Parliament was a conspiracy of the BJP to break UPA.

They said the BJP had brought disgrace to the nation by its action. Mr Prasad said there was a conspircay of the communal forces to destabilise the UPA Government.

Vehemently denying that its leaders tried to bribe three BJP MPs, Mr Mulayam Singh said it was rather the BJP which conspired to break six of its members.

Mr Amar Singh strictly denied that Sanjeev Saxena, the person who allegedly carried the cash to BJP MP Ashok Argal's residence, was his man. ''Saxena chose to go along with Mr Shahid Siddiqui after he parted company with us to join the BSP,'' he said. In fact Saxena was denied entry into his residence as he was no longer working in his office, Mr Amar Singh added.

The BJP had yesterday made public transcripts of the conversation recorded by the CNN IBN team which carried out the sting operation on the vote-for-cash scandal. It also released call details of the mobile phone of Sanjeev Saxena.

BJP leader Arun Jaitly had told the media that two of the three MPs had written a letter to the Chairman of the Parliamentary panel probing the vote-for-cash scandal, giving a detailed account cogently sequencing evidences available so that the Parliamentary Panel could proceed with the probe.

The BJP had stepped in to unearth the truth because all other institutions had appeared to collapse in the face of subversion attempts, he had said.

The party is pressing the CNN IBN to release the tapes of its sting operation, but the TV channel has been refusing to do so on the ground that the story was still incomplete and also that it would like to wait for the report of the Parliamentray probe into the scandal.

UNI NAZ SP CS1440