New Delhi, August 28
Firing a fresh salvo, Jaswant Singh has said that senior BJP leader LK Advani was “at the centre” of the cash-for-votes scam drama enacted in the Lok Sabha last year.

“It’s a great sense of pity. Here was a man who has consumed by an ambition to be PM, and that desire made him commit so many mistakes. Do you know this whole wretched thing of money for votes is a classic example of wrong decision making and it’s extremely troubling that he did not stand up and say no. Advani was at the centre of this whole drama,” he told a news magazine.

Singh was referring to the episode in the Lok Sabha during the Trust Vote in July last year when three BJP MPs displayed bundles of currency notes claiming they were being offered as bribe.

“I was not consulted but I was appalled that Advani was telling the MPs to display the money in Parliament,” he said. Singh said it was a matter of great sadness that Advani had failed in his function as a leader. A leader will have to lead by example and not through diktats, vague and unspecified insinuations and fears. There were numerous examples when Advani would either keep quite or transfer responsibility to somebody else on occasions that troubled him and where he is likely to come under fire. — PTI