US Embassy employee shown cash for 'pay-offs' in confidence

New Delhi, March 17 (PTI) An aide of the Congress party
leader Satish Sharma allegedly showed a US Embassy employee
"two chests containing cash" and said Rs 50-60 crore is ready
for use as "pay-offs" to win the support of some MPs (Member
of Parliament) ahead of crucial vote of confidence in UPA
government over the Indo-US nuke deal, claimed a set of US
diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks.
Noting that the Congress party machine was working
"overtime" behind the scenes in the run-up to the confidence
vote on July 22,2008, the cables also claimed the party had
allegedly paid Rs 10 crores to each of their "four RLD MPs."
RLD (Rashtriya Lok Dal) chief Ajit Singh denied the
allegations of pay-offs and said the party voted against Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh's government since it was against the
civil nuclear deal.
The cable claimed that Nachiketa Kapur, Sharma's
political aide, mentioned to an Embassy staff member in an
aside on July 16, 2008 that Ajit Singh's RLD had been paid Rs
10 crore for each of their "four MPs" to support the
government.
Kapur reportedly mentioned that money was not an issue
at all, but the crucial thing was to ensure that those who
took the money would vote for the government, according to the
cable sent from the US Embassy to the US State department
dated July 17, 2008.
Kapur showed the Embassy employee "two chests
containing cash" and said that "around Rs. 50-60 crore (about
25 million USD ) was lying around the house for "use as
pay-offs", the cable claimed.
Captain Satish Sharma told TV channels that he had no
such aide called Nachiketa Kapur.
Denying the alelgations against him, Kapur claimed he
did not meet any American Embassy official and that he had
nothing to do with the confidence vote.
According to Wikileaks, the cable mentioned about a
meeting US Political Counsellor had with Sharma, considered to
be a close friend of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, on July
16 during when the Congress MP in the Rajya Sabha told him
that he as well as others in the party was "working hard"
that the UPA government wins the trust vote.
Another Congress party insider reportedly told the
Counsellor that Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal
Nath is also helping to "spread largesse," the cable said.
""Formerly he could only offer small planes as bribes,""
according to this interlocutor, now he can pay for votes with
jets,"" the cable released by Wikileaks said.
Sharma reportedly told the Political Counsellor that "PM
Singh and others were trying to work on the Akali Dal(8 votes)
through NRI businessman Sant Chatwal and other, but
unfortunately it did not work out."
According to the cable, Sharma mentioned that efforts to
encourage Shiv Sena(12 votes) to abstain were on-going. While
different Congress operatives were working on different groups
of MPs, Sharma said that Rahul Gandhi was "personally working
Omar(Abdullah).
Sharma also reportedly mentioned that he was also
exploring the possibility of trying to get "former prime
minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's son-in-law Ranjan
Bhattacharya" to speak to BJP representatives to try to
divide the BJP ranks, according to the diplomatic cable.
According to the Wikileaks, the diplomatic cable
mentioned that "our best guess" ahead of the confidence vote
showed the government maintaining its slim majority with the
anticipated vote count at about 273 in favour, 251 opposed,
and 19 abstentions.
The UPA government won the confidence vote getting 275
votes in favour with 256 against and 10 abstentions.
Just before the vote, the BJP produced cash on the
floor of the House and alleged that this was the money the
government had used to try and buy the support of MPs. But
subsequent investigation ran aground.