The Trinamool Congress has strongly denied any cross voting from within the party in the vice presidential elections, saying the BJP had coerced or purchased some of the Opposition MPs to vote in favour of their candidate.
Blaming the Aam Aadmi Party for failing to keep its candidates united, Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee once again said that there was no cross voting from his party. “All our MPs voted in favour of the candidate put up by the Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance (INDIA),” he said, adding, however, that some AAP members “might have voted for the NDA.” Banerjee was busy on Friday meeting TMC leaders from various organisational districts. There were attempts on the part of the BJP “to purchase or coerce the opposition members,” he earlier said, adding, “Even if I accept that there was cross-voting, there are certain parties like the AAP, where a woman MP openly supports the BJP and speaks against Arvind Kejriwal ji who might have cross-voted.”
But in any case, “The TMC has once again proved that it is committed to the cause of opposition unity. Our senior and ailing leaders too came and voted setting a big example,” he said, alleging that the saffron camp “came with a sack of votes and perhaps spent `15-`20 crore per MP to buy votes.” The BJP was doing everything to undermine the Indian democracy,
he said.
Earlier the Left parties had doubted the credentials of the TMC MPs with former MP and CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakrabarty doubting the voting pattern of that party.
“They are so much sunk in corruption that they cannot stand and fight against the BJP. They can be sold either for money or can be coerced into submission by the ED and CBI because they have soiled all the sectors that they have touched,” he said.
In the Vice Presidential elections, NDA candidate CP Radhakrishnan got 452 votes, INDIA candidate B Sudershan Reddy secured 300 votes notwithstanding the fact that the combined strength of the opposition could be around 315 MPs.
Banerjee had earlier on Wednesday said, “After speaking to a few people, I can say the BJP spent `15-`20 crore on each person to buy votes. People elected as representatives are selling the people’s trust and emotions. Representatives can be bought, but not the people.”
Another TMC spokesperson and former Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh said that the “anger of the people was gradually going beyond control because of the BJP’s corrupt and dictatorial ways which was once again proved in the vice presidential elections.
They will express it full blast in the Bihar Assembly elections and then the next year’s elections in Bengal and some other States.