New Delhi: Initiating the discussion on the Prime Minister's statement on the Wikileaks expose in connection with the cash-for-votes scam, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta accused Singh of resorting to "parliamentary piracy" to win the vote of confidence in 2008 and demanded that he come clean.
He said the report of a Parliamentary panel on the scam had clearly recommended "investigation by an appropriate agency" into the alleged attempts to purchase votes to win the trust vote on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.
"It's a case of parliamentary piracy because some members were hijacked. The suspicion is that organised group of political gangsters were at work," he said.
Dasgupta's remarks terming the alleged scam as an act of "parliamentary piracy" and the handiwork of "organised groups of political gangsters" drew an angry retort from the ruling benches.
As the CPI leader demanded a probe in to largescale absenteeism in the opposition benches during the trust vote, ruling members, including Congress member Raj Babbar, were on their feet protesting the reference.
Taking objection to Prime Minister's remarks that the UPA had returned to power even after the alleged scam, Dasgupta said "electoral verdict cannot condone criminality if it has been perpetrated."
He said the Congress had polled only 25 per cent votes in the General Elections but did not want to draw any conclusion from it. "I make no conclusion. I donot say it is a minority government," he said.
However, this contention by the Prime Minister gives credence to the 'might is right' theory.
"Might is right is a dangerous proposition that does not fit-in in a democracy," he said.
Last week, the Prime Minister had hit out at the Opposition for giving "dignity" to an "unverified communication", and pointed out that the Congress had won the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and that the tally of the Opposition parties had reduced considerably.
Despatches by American diplomats, leaked by WikiLeaks and published in a national daily, purportedly claim that payoffs had been made to MPs to ensure a majority for the Congress-led government in the confidence vote following differences over the India-US nuclear deal in 2008.
As per the cables, a US diplomat was told Rs 50-60 crore was kept aside by the Congress party to get some opposition members of the Lok Sabha on board before the trust vote in July 2008 during the first tenure of the UPA government.
"I concede that the PM was precise in his statement and the statement was cogent. PM was very prompt in throwing the ball in the court of the Opposition, his tone was very firm, normally he is not. He was firm in rejecting the complaints on cash-for-votes during the last no confidence motion," said Dasgupta.
The CPI leader said linguistic fervour was used to conceal the facts. "Strong is the language of the weak and persuasive is the language of the strong," he said.
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