Prasad

New Delhi, Aug. 26: Cash for votes is sin, cash for questions much less so.

The BJP, unhappy with the way the probe into last month’s cash-for-vote scam, appears to have opened its back doors for an MP suspended in the 2005 cash-for-query scandal.

BJP leaders deny any double standards, saying MP Pradeep Gandhi, from Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon, had been suspended from the party after being expelled from Parliament along with 10 other MPs in the query scam.

Gandhi, said to be close to chief minister Raman Singh, has been given a key role in the state unit’s poll panel. In 2004, Gandhi had vacated his Assembly seat for Singh, who had to become an MLA to continue in the post.

Central leaders insist, though, that no relief has been offered. National spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, in charge of Chhattisgarh, told The Telegraph: “Gandhi’s suspension hasn’t been revoked. He expressed the desire to work for the party ahead of the Assembly elections (due later this year) and he has been allowed to do so. He will, however, not get a ticket to contest.”

To back his argument, Prasad said only the BJP parliamentary board, not a state unit, could revoke suspensions.

Despite being “suspended” by the central leadership, Gandhi continued to be active in the party, often spotted at the events of the BJP and other Sangh parivar outfits. The central leadership had been unhappy with the expulsion of the cash-for-query MPs, seeing the action as a “very big punishment for a small crime”.

Five of the 11 MPs sacked exposed in the sting operation were from the BJP.

Now, the leaders feel those involved in the cash-for-vote scam leading up to the July 22 trust vote are not being dealt with as strictly. They are not happy with the formation of a parliamentary committee and suspect a design to protect the culprits. The panel, headed by the Congress’s Kishore Chandra Dev, has completed hearings.