UPA, NDA tried to bribe MPs during 2008 trust vote: Pappu Yadav

NEW DELHI: Both Congress and BJP had offered huge sums to MPs in exchange for their support during the 2008 trust vote in Parliament, former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav has said in a book in which he also states that three MPs of his Indian Federal Democratic Party (IFDP) had got money "courtesy of the then finance minister Yashwant Sinha", to join NDA in 2001.

The above claims are part of the book, 'Drohkaal Ke Pathik' by Pappu Yadav, which was today released by well-known critic Namwar Singh in the presence of senior political figures like Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh and party leader Jagdish Tytler, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan.

BJP was quick to reject the controversial claims in the book saying, "Everyone in this country has the right to speak. Do you take him (Pappu Yadav) seriously. There have been a number of cases against him. He has been convicted by the court. Yashwant Sinha has already denied the allegation," said the Deputy Leader of BJP in Rajya Sabha, Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Asked for his comments on the same at the launch, Digvijay appeared to play it safe, saying, "I have come here to release a book, not to do politics."

In the book which meanders through the rough and tumble of his two decade-long political career in the Kosi region of Bihar, Pappu Yadav has said that money to the tune of Rs 40 crore was offered to each MP by both Congress and BJP during the 2008 trust vote, when the UPA government was facing a no-confidence motion following the Left's withdrawal of support over the nuclear deal issue.

"Once again began the exercise of manipulating MPs and persuading them... Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government had fallen after it failed the confidence motion by one vote. So, both the ruling UPA and the Opposition NDA were burning the midnight oil this time... Those days each MP was offered Rs 40 crore by both Congress and BJP," he said.

Further, he says in the book that, in 2001, when he was in jail, he had set up the IFDP with five MPs out of which three were given money courtesy Sinha to support the NDA government.

"All the five MPs had decided to support the NDA government... What the MPs got in lieu of that support had to be bargained for... Anwarul Haque got an Accent car and Rs 1 crore, Nagmani got Rs 1 crore immediately with an assurance of a minister of state berth later, courtesy Sinha. PC Thomas also got MoS status. Haque and Sukhdev Paswan took money, and when Nagmani did not get the MoS post, he, too, was given money," the book claims.