Lucknow, May 8: Former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat today alleged that at least two senior bureaucrats were trying to bribe Congress MLAs as the hill state lurched towards Tuesday's floor test amid claims of yet another "sting".
"My rivals have done a sting operation on these bureaucrats and blackmailing them to help the BJP by bullying the Congress MLAs," Rawat told reporters in Dehradun today.
If the allegation is true, this would be the third sting operation in the state since March 25, when nine rebel Congress legislators had released the first sting video in Delhi.
In that video, the ousted Congress chief minister was purportedly shown giving his consent for horse-trading.
In a second sting video released in Delhi today, a Congress MLA is purportedly heard saying that 12 of his party colleagues had received bribes to support Rawat during the May 10 floor test that the Supreme Court has ordered.
Uttarakhand was brought under President's rule on March 27 on the ground of constitutional breakdown, two days after the first sting video was shown.
With 27 MLAs of the Congress - excluding the nine disqualified by the Speaker - and six from the Progressive Democratic Front, the numbers are on Rawat's side in the 71-member House that also has an Anglo-Indian member nominated by the Congress.
The top courthad last week refused to allow the nine disqualified MLAs from participating in the floor test, although it said its decision would have no bearing on a petition pending in UttarakhandHigh Court challenging the Speaker's decision to disqualify them.
The high court is scheduled to pronounce its verdict tomorrow. If it doesn't allow the nine to vote on Tuesday, Rawat would be at an advantage because of the reduced strength of the House.
The BJP has 28 MLAs but Bhimlal Arya, one of its MLAs suspended from the party two months ago, is expected to stand by Rawat.
Rawat said the hill state was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in November 2000 for quick development. "But the BJP is experimenting here with its politics of blackmailing. I am not into horse-trading, I am only a victim of the BJP's politics," he claimed.
He alleged that the two bureaucrats had agreed to work on behalf of the BJP after seeing the "old sting operations" on them.
Aware that the numbers are against it, the BJP wants the top court to take cognisance of the "state of affairs in Uttarakhand".
"The judiciary is watching how Rawat is trying to buy the MLAs," said Kailash Vijayvargiya, the party's national general secretary who has been camping in Dehradun since Friday.
"The Congress is using money power to win the support of the MLAs," added Ajay Bhatt, the state president of the BJP. "The Supreme Court should take note of it."
Madan Bisht, a Congress MLA, added to the intrigue when he moved an application with Dehradun's Rajpur police station today for adequate security.
"Some people owing allegiance to the BJP have been trying to threaten me because I told them that I would stick to my party in any situation," he said in his application.
