Author: Shantanu Guha Ray
Publication: India Today
Date: March 25, to April 4, 2011
URL: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/133359/cover-story/wikileaks-why-cnn-ibn-sting-operation-on-cash-for-votes-scandal-was-not-aired.html
Introduction: The story behind the sting operation
conducted by CNN-IBN in the cash-for-votes scandal that was not aired
On March 17, days after the WikiLeaks disclosure
rocked Parliament, V.K. Shashi Kumar, who headed the CNN-IBN Special Investigation
Team (SIT) conducting the sting of MPs being bribed, wrote on his Facebook
wall: "Why do we need Americans to tell us the truth, when it has been
staring at us for three years?"
Several members of the CNN-IBN sit involved
in the cash-for-votes investigation, claims Shashi Kumar, were already aware
of horse-trading in Parliament for the July 22, 2008, no-confidence motion
vote. For nearly a week, a close confidant of a north Indian chief minister
was busy coordinating MPs from Punjab and some North-eastern states to save
the day for the Government.
CNN-IBN's key journalist Siddharth Gautam,
currently with Headlines Today, however, says he knew nothing about the politics
involved. "Investigation is normally planned for days. But here, I was
asked one evening to get ready for a big assignment," he says, even though
the offices of CNN-IBN in Noida were abuzz with hushed conversations for over
a fortnight.
On the night of July 21, 2008, Gautam was
to head for the heart of Delhi-Balwant Rai Mehta Lane right behind the imposing
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. There he met Sudheendra Kulkarni, a senior BJP functionary.
"He was to lead me to the most definitive sting operation of my life,"
says Gautam. The plan was a sting operation at hotel Le Meridien to film Ahmed
Patel, a top Congress leader, allegedly ready to offer cash to some BJP MPs.
The problem was that Patel never appeared. The three BJP MPs-Ashok Argal,
Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora-waited at the same house where Gautam
met Kulkarni. Soon, they were joined by Suhail Hindustani, an associate of
Kulkarni. Hindustani talked endlessly on his mobile phone.
Gautam insisted on accompanying the MPs but
they were not keen. Worse, Bhagora refused to go to Le Meridien. Gautam then
wired up the other two MPs, Argal and Kulaste, with spy cameras and all headed
for the hotel. The two MPs went in while Gautam and Kulkarni sat at a Cafe
Coffee Day in Connaught Place. An hour later, Kulkarni got a call on his mobile
phone. The caller asked him to head back to the hotel.
The two MPs said no one came with the cash.
Gautam checked the footage. One camera had recorded vague conversations of
people and visuals of the roof of a room. "I realised the MP must have
scratched his chest and dislodged the camera from its position," says
Gautam. The second camera recorded visuals of some Congressmen who hang around
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Gautam could sense that the
Congress was actively involved in the cash-for-votes gameplan.
Kulkarni, Gautam and the two MPs headed back
to the Balwant Rai Lane home. The tape was rechecked but it showed the same
footage. Kulkarni was upset. Equally upset was senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley,
who had apparently masterminded the operation and rushed to see the result
late in the night. "He was livid and blamed us for reaching late. Jaitley
said that's why the Congress paymaster went away," says Gautam.
The scene of action then shifted to Argal's
house. The three BJP MPs were to assemble there in the morning of July 22,
2008, and then go to the home of Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh. Kulkarni
said Amar would organise the cash and it would be offered to the MPs, all
to be captured on camera. But the MPs didn't want to carry hidden cameras
to Amar's house. There was some talk of Amar visiting Argal, but the sp leader
conveyed that he would send cash through his associate, Sanjeev Saxena. It
was then that Gautam suggested the sting at Argal's home itself. Kulkarni
and Hindustani agreed. Once the place was wired up, the CNN-IBN journalists
went home.
On the morning of July 22, the journalists
returned. Gautam sat in a car, waiting to instruct technicians (they were
in the adjacent room) to start recording the moment cash appeared. Saxena
made two trips. On his first trip, he brought insufficient cash and was sent
back by Hindustani. Saxena came again. The hidden cameras recorded him emptying
cash on the table.
Gautam was overjoyed. Once Saxena was gone,
he interviewed the MPs, who said on camera that they were offered cash for
votes. Gautam did his mandatory piece to the camera and rushed to office.
Once his script was done, he waited for a call from CNN-IBN editor-in-chief
Rajdeep Sardesai. No call came. For hours, video editors sat with the tapes.
Gautam was not allowed inside the editing bay. "I sat in a corner of
the office like an outcast though I was the key person in the investigation,"
recalls Gautam.
And then, all hell broke loose. All Gautam
could hear was two words as an explanation for Sardesai's volte-face: inconclusive
evidence. Senior producers of the channel screamed. Do you know the Government
will fall if this is shown on air? Gautam wondered why he was sent for the
sting operation when the channel was not ready to air it.
Sardesai went on air on July 22, 2008, outside
Parliament to say his channel had done a sting operation and it would be soon
telecast. Then he went off air. Then he surfaced again to say he was heading
to the office of Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee to hand over the tapes
in the national interest. But he didn't go to the speaker for the next three
days.
Sardesai, who had not talked to Gautam so
far, asked if he needed police protection. For what, asked Gautam? "I
felt like a stray dog," says Gautam, who resigned from the channel and
took a bus to Dharamshala. Many MPs asked him if the tapes were doctored.
And then, on August 11, 2008, almost 20 days after the incident, when the
story had become completely irrelevant, CNN-IBN telecast the investigation.
Here too, it was less than honest. "A
vital portion of the tape showing movement of cars from Amar Singh's home
was deleted," says a senior journalist involved in editing of the footage.
Was that to save Amar and those on whose behalf the sp leader was working?
The journalist did not answer. Repeated attempts to reach Sardesai proved
futile. Gautam was later called by the news channel for a deposition before
a Parliamentary committee. He rehearsed with his former colleagues for a day
and eventually offered "doctored statements".
Thanks to WikiLeaks, his mobile phone has
started buzzing again. Officers of the Crime Branch of Delhi Police are among
the callers. They want to record his statement. Why now?
