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COVER STORY: NDA
INTERVIEW: BANGARU LAXMAN
"It Is A Move To Scuttle My Career"
 "What's
my crime? What was Eklavya's crime?" Bangaru Laxman who resigned
as the BJP president after the "fictitious" defence deal expose
by Tehelka.com showed him receiving Rs 1 lakh as donation for the party,
asks his admirers at his Kushak road bungalow. Later, a visibly upset
Laxman told Associate Editor Farzand Ahmed: "I am not ruling
out the possibility of a conspiracy within and outside my party to sabotage
my career." Excerpts:
Q. Did you meet the "middlemen"
and promise them help in lieu of material gains?
A. They came to discuss the investment scenario in the country, offered
to invest Rs 5,000 crore in infrastructure and casually talked about defence
purchases. See the tapes. See the transcript.
Q. So without verifying their bona fides,
you talked to them and accepted donations.
A. As
a political leader I am bound to talk to people who show interest in investment.
What's wrong in that?
Q. And the Rs 1 lakh in cash... ?
A. All parties run on public donations. If someone comes and offers
a donation, I accept it in good faith. The question is whether the money
was deposited in the party account or not. Why would anyone seek favours
from me when I am neither a minister nor in any decision-making body?
The defence minister is also not from my party.
Q. You asked for dollar payments.
A.
That was their trick. They suddenly asked if they could contribute in
dollars. I asked in surprise, "Dollars?" and then I said, "Yes,
you can." They twisted it, edited it to malign me.
Q. But why?
A. It is a politically motivated move to scuttle my political career.
Maybe my being a Dalit, my refusal to yield to any pressure, my attempt
to rework the party's relationship with Muslims and bring Dalits into
the party's fold, have led to this conspiracy.
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