Advani lends full support to Judeo

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani has said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will probe whether the latest bribery scandal involving Bharatiya Janata Party's chief ministerial aspirant from Chhattisgarh state, Dilip Singh Judeo, was victim of a sting operation.

"Besides finding out whether Judeo is guilty, it will also find out who was behind this sting operation and with what motive," Advani announced here yesterday during the course of a press conference to formally launch BJP's campaign to wrest power from the Congress party in next month's assembly polls.

Judeo resigned as the junior federal minister for environment and the case has been handed over to the CBI aftrer a video CD showing him accepting money at a New Delhi hotel surfaced on Friday. Timing of the expose, coming just two weeks before the provincial polls in four states has raised several questions, although Judeo himself has indirectly admitted to having received the money.

While Advani said that he cannot disclose certain details due to ongoing CBI probe, one of his close confidant said that there is absolutely no doubt that he has been framed and "foolishly" Judeo walked into a well-laid trap.

"CBI may even question the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi since he seems to know more about the video CD than the newspaper and the television channel that exposed this scandal. How did he know that the venue was New Delhi's Taj Hotel and that the wades of money given to Judeo was far more than what was given to Bangaru Laxman?" Advani's confidant told Gulf News.

Advani himself lent full support to hapless Judeo, asserting that the 'sting operation' has not caused any embarrassment to the BJP and that Judeo will continue to be its star campaigner for the December 1 polls. However, he left none in doubt that Judeo may have marred his prospects of becoming the Chhattisgarh chief minister even in the event of BJP's victory by saying that it will depend on the CBI report.

"In politics it takes no time to ruin someone's reputation. No one knows who this Rahul is who offered money to Judeo. Why his face was never shown and why he does not come out in the open?" wondered Advani.

He also added that Judeo's credibility remains intact and his stock has gone up with his gesture of resigning, compared to Jogi who has been chargesheeted by the CBI in a forgery case but continues to remain chief minister.

Taking a dig at the Congress party, Advani, who addressed four rallies in the state yesterday, said that since the Congress party's reaction to any corruption charges remain inconsistent, the BJP's instant reaction has raised the party's stock as people now believe that it is a party with a difference, convinced that it wants to fight corruption and that its government at the centre is serious about cleansing public life.

Turning the focus on the Congress government of Chhattisgarh, Advani said that during the past three years, ever since the state came into being, the Congress party's government has given a "negative model of non-governance".

Reminding that the state was created as per the BJP's promise in November 2000, Advani termed the Jogi government stands out as a "model of what a government should not be like".

He said the BJP's main issue in Chhattisgarh as well as in three other Congress party ruled states, namely Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, will be comparision of performance of the Congress party governments in these four states with that of the BJP-led federal government. BJP sources here say that the graft charge against Judeo, even if it sticks, may not influence the overall verdict. But it has certainly robbed the BJP of one issue – corruption. Its leaders are on the defensive and cannot criticise Jogi government for being corrupt.