Bhopal, Mar 21: Samajwadi Party MLA Kishore Samrite recorded his statements before the police here on Friday, in the case pertaining to money offered to him to vote for independent candidate Vivek Tankha in the Rajya Sabha election scheduled on March 28.
The bribing case came to light on Tuesday night when Samrite called media persons and showing Rs 10 lakh cash informed that this amount was offered to him as advance by former minister and Congress leader NP Prajapati to vote in favour of Tankha. Samrite says that Congress leaders have been offering him up to Rs 30 lakh to vote for Tankha. Since Additional SP (City) GK Pathak is investigating the bribing case, Samrite reached police control room in the morning and recorded his statements before him.
“A bribe of Rs 25 lakh was offered by the Congress (including Tankha, Leader of the Opposition in Madhya Pradesh Assembly Jamuna Devi, Congress MLA Rajendra Singh and former minister NP Prajapati) to me for voting in favour of Tankha ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls. They even sent Rs 10 lakh as advance to my residence,” Samrite alleged before the police. Samrite told, “I have given the copy of Leader of Opposition Jamuna Devi's letter dated March 14 to the police. Copies of two party whips issued separately by the party's national general secretary Amar Singh and party's whip in MP Assembly Vanshmani Verma have also been submitted to the police,” Samrite said.
He further said that he has also told the police that the same evening (March 14), he was taken from Vidhan Sabha to Congress president Suresh Pachouri's residence in her car and later the Samajwadi Party's state president Narayan Tripathi with another party leader Arjun Palia went in Pachouri's chartered plane to Delhi and urged police to verify the facts. On March 12, he further said that Jamuna Devi called a meeting of all opposition MLAs in her Assembly office to discuss issues related to the House but talked about supporting Tankha in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls polling for which is scheduled to be held on March 28.