'Murli Manohar Joshi is a hypocrite; he met 2G accused'

Controversial businessman Anshuman Mishra, who recently withdrew his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections from Jharkhand owing to the controversy with the Bharatiya Janata Party, on Friday made sensational claims about PAC Chairman and senior BJP leader Dr Murli Manohar Joshi

In an interview with CNN-IBN, Mishra talks about the entire goof up regarding his nomination while making serious charges against Joshi, alleging that the latter met the 2G scam beneficiary companies in his presence.

Excerpts of the interview:

On using money power to get Rajya Sabha nomination

"I have come here to keep all facts on table. I have not taken a single penny to Jharkhand to buy a single MLA. I withdrew because I was hurt that a section of BJP, including very senior leaders made personal allegations against me and put my reputation at stake.

I have not contributed anything as quid-pro-quo for this Rajya Sabha election. The BJP leaders are aware that with my corporate friends in India I have been assisting them since past decade or more for fund raising."

...

On dealing with BJP leaders

"I don't want to dive into this. But I have been deeply hurt by few very senior BJP leaders, including Dr Murli Manohar Joshi who called me in 2004 when he was contesting from Allahabad and then swapped his constituency from Banaras.

I have evidence... he calling up more than ten times to contribute for his election campaign in both these elections."

"He was the one who told me that I will bring you into political stream at some point but I'm going to run this country, the moment I became closer to other party presidents... he was always nervous whenever I talked about Rajnath Singh, Gadkari or Venkaiah Naidu.

He became a completely different personality just because I had working relationship with others."

...

Serious allegations against Murli Manohar joshi

"This is same Dr Joshi who is at the height of hypocrisy... Dr Joshi met with 2G accused companies in my presence. If he would openly deny it, I am ready for any probe... I don't know whether it was quid pro quo or just to get briefed about the 2G scam.

But he met few very senior functionaries of these companies and he also asked me if I could organise a meeting of a lady friend of his with them at a neutral place because I function in the corporate world."

"From that point onwards my connections with Dr Joshi ended because I did not want to do anything unethical. My relationship with Dr Joshi was very clean. I made little contribution to his campaign in 2004 and 2009 and that's it."

"Dr Joshi was a good friend till I filed the nomination for Rajya Sabha... he has a special lady friend who has access to all corporate bosses. What hurts me is that Dr Joshi turned out to be a hypocrite."

...

On access to BJP leaders

"Since 2000 onwards, I had access to senior BJP leaders, including the most respected Hindutva icon of the country. They came out in the open and denied that I was not having access and they were not making phone calls to me. Let them come in open and deny that, I would provide the evidence."

On raising fund for BJP

"I was doing my job. I have no interest here. I am not doing regular business in India. I am deeply saddened by the hypocrisy of few of these guys. They called me Mr Clean till 2011. But when I was brought to political limelight I became untouchable."

On hitting back at BJP

"I did not make any blunder by filing nomination for Rajya Sabha. It was the BJP leadership, which endorsed it. They sent me there. They had the CM and the state unit president sat in one room along with 12 BJP MLAs to sign my nomination. It was not 6 MLAs as Mr Sinha has quoted. If Mr Sinha can have defeat in 2004 election and come back as Rajya Sabha member in 2005. Phagan Singh Kulste becomes Mr Clean but I became unclean. Senior leaders in Upper House are very happy to ask me for favours."

Click on NEXT to go further...