BJP gives clean chit to pary leaders in alleged Leh bribery case

Jammu: The internal fact finding commission of the BJP Thursday released its report, giving clean chit to state party president Ravinder Raina and two other senior leaders in the alleged case of offering bribes to journalists in Leh to influence the recently held parliamentary polls in Ladakh.

The state unit of the Congress, however, out rightly rejected the probe and termed it as an attempt by the saffron party to influence the police investigation.

"The BJP leaders have not done anything wrong and that whatever has been levelled against them is totally false and baseless," the three-member commission headed by Justice (retd) G D Sharma said in its report, released by the party, here.

The commission was constituted last month on the directions of the BJP national president Amit Shah to look into the allegations of offering bribe to the journalists in Leh during the election campaign for the Lok Sabha seat.

The commission, whose other members include former IGP S S Bijral as member and Pallav Sharma as member secretary, has given clean chit to Raina, state general secretary Narinder Singh and MLC Vikram Randhawara as it found that they did not, in any manner, whatsoever, misconducted themselves to seek favour in any form.

On May 4, the Press Club, Leh, had accused the BJP of trying to bribe its members by offering "envelops filled with money" after a press conference on May 2, a charge denied by the party which had said the allegations were "politically motivated".