Wikileaks: Congress party 'bought India votes'

[BOG PERSON]

Source: BBC

India's ruling Congress party bribed MPs to survive a crucial vote of confidence in 2008, a diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks suggests.

It describes how a senior Congress aide showed a US embassy official "chests of cash" to pay off MPs ahead of a vote over a controversial nuclear deal.

The ruling party has denied the allegations.

The leak heaps further pressure on embattled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after a string of corruption scandals.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12768908

[nyy1998]

1. What's so earth-shattering about this? Everyone in India knew about this.

And both the BJP and Congress were doing it.

[reorg]

2. let me guess

or, rather, cite an explanation:

... The secret U.S. Embassy cable, however, is likely to reignite Opposition allegations that bribery was resorted to on a massive scale to ensure the UPA won the 2008 vote of confidence.

The fact that Congress politicians could speak so freely to American diplomats about their bribing spree during the run up to the confidence vote — and that the latter could be so blasé about the subversion of democracy — underlines the all-encompassing but ultimately corrosive nature of the “strategic partnership” the two governments were trying to build.

As for Mr. Kapur, his candid display of crores of rupees to be used by the Congress as “pay offs” for the trust vote was not seen by the U.S. Embassy as compromising his democratic credentials in any way. In November 2008, he was sent to the U.S. under the State Department's I-Vote 2008 programme as an observer for that year's presidential election. “The move to invite international observers”, he wrote in a blog post, “reflects the open and democratic nature of the American society.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/article1544204.ece

LOL