New Delhi: Former Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh was questioned by Delhi Police on Friday over his alleged role in the 2008 cash-for-vote scam.
Singh spent close to four hours inside the inter-state cell of crime branch in New Delhi’s Chanakyapuri. He is the third person to be questioned by Delhi Police over the past one week after it was pulled up by the Supreme Court on July 15 for shoddy investigation in the case.
However, unlike Sanjeev Saxena and Suhail Hindustani who were taken into custody after questioning, Singh walked free giving rise to speculations that Delhi Police under pressure may not name anyone from the Samajwadi Party or India’s ruling Congress party.
Police sources, however, indicated that Singh may be asked to appear for questioning once again next week after interrogating some other persons involved with the case, including the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Ashok Argal, one of the recipients of the bribe money and Sudheendra Kulkarni, a close associate of BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani who had organised spycam shooting of the bribery incident.
"We have evidence that links Amar Singh to one of the two persons arrested in the case," police sources said. While Saxena, a close associate of Singh who delivered the money to three BJP lawmakers, has said he got money form Singh, Hindustani who worked as the middleman claims Singh and senior Congress party leader Ahmed Patel kept in constant touch with him.
Although details of what Singh told police are not yet known, it is understood that he told his interrogators that he was in touch with some Congress leaders at the political level before July 22, 2008 trust vote in the Lok Sabha.
Singh, who had earlier said that he did not know Saxena, admitted before police that Saxena did work as an aide but he was not on his pay roll when the incident took place. A gloomy looking Singh refused to take questions from media before or after his questioning.
Police say that they have evidence that Saxena called up Singh’s residence at least six times from his mobile phone in one hour before the trust vote took place.
Argal along with Faggan Singh Kulsate and Mahavir Bhagora were paid Rs. 10 million to abstain from voting. They, however, opted to place the bribe money on the table of the Lok Sabha, creating sensation and a big political storm.
Since revelations may create trouble for the Congress party-led Untied Progressive Alliance government headed by Manmohan Singh, there are suggestions that the Delhi Police, which functions directly under the federal Home Ministry, may dilute charges against Amar Singh and some other Congress leaders whose names have cropped up in the case.
