NEW DELHI, 11 December 2003 — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday promised opposition MPs that a federal inquiry into allegations of corruption against a former minister would be impartial.
“It has been the policy of my government that all allegations pertaining to corruption should be thoroughly inquired into,” Vajpayee told MPs in identical statements to both houses of Parliament. “Accordingly, the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) is inquiring into this whole matter and it would be premature to state anything until the inquiry is complete,” he said as opposition MPs voiced protests. Vajpayee was making a statement on charges of alleged corruption against former junior minister for environment Dilip Singh Judeo, who quit last month after video footage showed him taking cash from a businessman named Rahul seeking a mining contract. The minister was seen touching the currency to his forehead. Judeo quit soon after the video footage was aired but the main opposition Congress seized on the issue at election rallies ahead of polls to four states on Dec. 1.
The campaign, however, did not make an impression on voters who ousted Congress governments and voted Vajpayee’s Hindu nationalist BJP into power in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Vajpayee said CBI detectives were totally impartial. “There should therefore be no fear or misgivings regarding the independence of this enquiry,” he said. “I would like to assure this august house that ... the law will take its own course.”
The statement is unlikely to satisfy the Congress, which is at war with the BJP over accusations that senior Congress leader Ajit Jogi had tried to bribe newly elected BJP legislators in Chhattisgarh to defect. The move was apparently aimed at preventing the BJP from taking over the Chhattisgarh state government from the Congress, which was defeated by a huge margin in the polls and dealt an embarrassing blow to the leadership of Sonia Ghandi.
