NEW DELHI: Eight members of Janata Dal Parliamentary Party defected recently to jolt the V.P.Singh-led opposition party. The latter demanded that Indian Lok Sabha Speaker declare these eight M.P.s as defectors and disqualify them from the house membership. The Speaker Shiv Raj Patil who belongs to the ruling Congress (I) party has yet to take a decision on the future of the M-P.s.

Meanwhile, senior Janata Dal leader George Fernandes has urged the Lok Sabha Speaker Shivraj Paul to appoint a House Committee to probe the role of money into the recent bid to split the Janata Dal.

Ina letter to Patil, Fernandes said House Committee should be given powers to investigate the source of money which changed hands, the matter of payment and the persons who are involved in the sordid drama. He said some people who were involved in the exercise were freely speaking about the role played by money.

The Janata Dal leader also suggested the formation of a House Committee on Ethics, on the pattern of a similar one in United States of America, to deal with such cases in future, as also the matters involving conflict of interest, while serving as members of the House.

How could the Parliament members investigate a massive scandal like the stock market scam involving thousands of crore of rupees, if the MPs are available on sale, Fernandes told newsmen. Those who receive such money are as guilty as those who pay it but “those who make the money available are far from dangerous people,” Fernandes said.

He narrated how Hari Kewal Prasad, an MPs from Salempur (Uttar Pradesh), was approached by certain persons, including the Janata Party President, Subramanium Swamy who had approached him to break from the Janata Dal. Prasad was offered Rs 20 lakh for signing a letter and Rs 30 lakh for parading before the Speaker,

Fernandes, who had advised Hari Kewal Prasad to enter the dissidents’ camp as a role said in the letter to the Speaker that he had’ also kept the party President, S .R. Bommai and the Janata Dal Parliamentary Party leader, V.P.Singh informed about the developments.

So far as the Anti-Defection Act is concerned, there are constitutional and legal provisions and earlier decisions of the speakers of the House and the interrogations of the Act by the Supreme Court of India to enable Patil to take a decision on the current Janata Dal case.

Meanwhile, Janata Dal working President Jeevaraj Alva has urged party President J.H_ Patel to enlarge the scope of the investigation into cross-voting by party men to cover the last biennia elections to the Rajya Sabha also.

In a letter to Patel, Alva said it was very strange that Patel had become touchy about cross voting all of a sudden. He reminded him, that he had contested the Rajya Sabha elections, but had found to his dismay that four party legislators had defied the whip and voted against him.

While welcoming Patel’s hiring the services of a private agency to investigate the cross-voting during the recent presidential elections. Alva said, “Is voting against the official party candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections not an act of indiscipline?

Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 21, 1992