Congress leaders rush to deny WikiLeaks cash-for-vote of confidenc expose

The Congress-led UPA government, already battered by a series of scandals, faced further embarrassment on Thursday, when a WikiLeaks release purportedly showed that the Congress party tried to buy votes of MPs to ensure that the Manmohan Singh government survived a vote of confidence on the Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008. 

The latest US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks apparently showed that a close aide of senior Congress leader Satish Sharma showed a US embassy employee ''two chests containing cash'', which according to him was part of Rs50-60 crores arranged by the party to purchase the support of MPs. 

Not only this, Sharma's political aide also revealed to the US national that Congress party has already paid Rs10 crore each to four MPs belonging to Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal to secure vote in favour of the UPA government. 

All the persons named were quick to rubbish the reports. Ajit Singh called them ''garbage'' and ''factually incorrect'', pointing out that his party was always opposed to the nuclear deal and had in fact voted against the government in Parliament. 

''Even the facts are wrong. We were three MPs in the Lok Sabha during the last Lok Sabha and not four MPs as claimed. And there is no evidence either to substantiate this garbage claim,'' Singh said. 

According to WikiLeaks, the US charge d'affaires also mentioned that on 16 July - five days ahead of the confidence vote - Sharma's political aide Nachiketa Kapur told an embassy staff that Ajit Singh's party had been paid Rs10 crore for each of their four MPs.