Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 24 (IANS) Charging the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government with trying to “curb the voices of anti-corruption protesters”, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Murli Manohar Joshi alleged the Congress-led UPA was itself “born out of corruption”.

“The UPA government, which was born out of corruption in 2008 trust vote, is trying to curb the voices of anti-corruption protesters,” said Joshi, who opened the debate on corruption in the Lok Sabha Wednesday.

“The country will not tolerate this,” he asserted.

Responding to Joshi’s remark, Congress’ K.S. Rao said the UPA government was born in 2004 out of corruption accumulated during the previous NDA (National Democratic Alliance) regime led by the BJP.

He questioned the “first come, first served” policy followed by the NDA government in giving telecom licences and allocating spectrum.

As Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MP Basudeb Acharia said the government suffered from a trust deficit, Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Dara Singh Chauhan said pointing fingers at each other will not help.

Stating that a series of scams have been unearthed since 2005, including of Satyam, the Scorpion submarine deal, Hasan Ali, (former Jharkhand chief minister) Madhu Koda, the Commonwealth Games (CWG), Adarsh Society, and 2G spectrum, Joshi said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talked about 9 percent economic growth to develop infrastructure but did little to stop such scams.

Citing jailed DMK MP Kanimozhi’s statement said Manmohan Singh and Home Minister (the then finance minister) P. Chidambaram “knew about the decision on 2G spectrum allocation,” Joshi said the government should “have the courage to accept its mistakes”.

Taking a dig at Communications Minister Kapil Sibal’s remark that there was zero loss in the 2G spectrum allocation, even when the Central Bureau of Investigation FIR pegged the amount at Rs.22,000 crore, Joshi suggested the prime minister should “change the attitude of his cabinet colleagues”.

Hinting at corruption involving MNCs and government officials, Joshi urged the government to “identify such people and punish them”. He said the government’s gas pricing policy after the KG (Krishna Godavari) basin find favoured a corporate house.

Asking the government to bring back black money of Indians stashed abroad in foreign banks, the BJP MP assured of support from all the political parties. “The nation wants to see our seriousness on the corruption issue.”

Referring to various international reports on corruption in the country, Joshi said India continues to be seen as corrupt.