The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday alleged that the BJP had spent ₹15-20 crore per MP — presumably from non-NDA parties — to buy votes for the Vice-President poll, lambasting them for “commodifying” the trust and emotions of the people who had elected them, and attacking the saffron camp for its “misuse” of money for influencing elections.
The national general secretary of Trinamool, Abhishek Banerjee, said all 41 party MPs (the Basirhat seat is vacant following the death of MP Haji Nurul Islam) in both Houses of Parliament were present and voted for the Opposition candidate, B. Sudershan Reddy.
However, Abhishek did not rule out the possibility of cross-voting.
“Since this was a secret ballot, it’s difficult to say whether cross-voting took place or whether the Opposition members’ votes were discarded. Even if I accept that there was cross-voting, there are certain parties like the AAP, from which a woman MP openly supports the BJP and speaks against Arvind Kejriwal. There are two to four such MPs,” he said.
Reddy secured 300 votes and lost to the NDA’s C.P. Radhakrishnan, who won 452 votes. The Opposition had 315 MPs present for the election.
Of the total 781 MPs from the two Houses, 767 showed up for the election, and 15 votes were ruled invalid.
“I spoke to some people and learned that they spent ₹15-20 crore on each (MP) to buy votes. People elected as representatives are commodifying the people’s trust and emotions. If they think the people’s mandate can be bought or sold like commodities in a market, they are living in a fool’s paradise. Maybe some elected representatives can be bought, but not the people or their will,” added Abhishek.
The Diamond Harbour MP accused the BJP of “playing money games” in the state’s 2021 Assembly election, besides the recent Assembly elections of Maharashtra and Jharkhand.
“There have been so many instances in which, with the muscle of money, MLAs have been bought and sold and governments have collapsed,” said Abhishek, in an oblique reference to the BJP’s notorious “Operation Lotus”.
He alleged that in the general election last year, the BJP had attempted to buy off polling agents of non-NDA parties with offers of
₹5,000-10,000.
“But the people of Bengal still voted for Trinamool. Bengal’s people showed them that leaders can sometimes be bought, but not the people,” said Trinamool’s Number Two.
He said the BJP misused money in the Vice-President election as well, but agreed that the cross-voting allegations remained in the realm of speculation.
“One hypothesis could be that all Opposition members voted (for Reddy), and if 15 votes discarded were from the Opposition, then cross-voting could not have happened. If you consider a 50-50 split (of the 15 invalid votes), then maybe five-seven people cross-voted,” said Abhishek.
“It is a matter of speculation whether the 15 votes declared null and void were from the INDIA bloc or not. There could be certain people who said they were aligned with INDIA but were still supporting the BJP,” he added.