On whose behest did Amar Singh act, ask BJP and Left

NEW DELHI: The 2008 cash-for-votes scandal was back in the news, following Amar Singh's arrest on Tuesday, with BJP and CPM alleging Congress was the beneficiary. Opposition parties said it needed to be probed on whose behest Amar Singh acted in 2008.

"The foremost question arises as to who were the beneficiaries of this (buying votes) action… Weren't the UPA government and Dr Manmohan Singh the beneficiaries? How come the beneficiaries are not in the picture," BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, after Amar Singh's arrest.

He said it needed to be clarified by the government and termed it as the scandal of the century. "This is the right time for Amar Singh to say the truth…for whom did he work towards saving the government," Rudy said.

BJP's Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Singh Bhagora, then party MPs who walked into Lok Sabha waving bundles of cash, just before the trust vote, were also arrested with the court rejecting their bail. The BJP has maintained that whistleblowers were being entrapped.

"I don't have any faith in Delhi Police and this government. Delhi Police took three years, they only worked when court forced them. Even a blind man will know that government is entrapping the whistleblowers," said BJP's Balbir Punj.