Priya Ranjandas Munshi, minister for parliamentary affairs who also holds the charge of minister for information and broadcasting, said that the government should ban all sting operations. " Do paise lagakar char paise banane ka tarika hai," he said when some members raised the issue of Members of parliament renting their official homes to make money.
CNN-IBN Channel in a sting operation telecast on Monday night had shown how the members of the parliament were misusing their official residences in Delhi.
His cabinet colleague Kapil Sibal, minister for science and technology, however, disagreed with Munshi and commended the television media for exposing wrong doings by the members of Parliament.
"I must congratulate all the media channels who have exposed corruption at the highest level. I am against the wrong doing by members of parliament," he said. He did not favour imposing of ban on the sting operations on the television media as it would amount to curbing the freedom of press.
He did not think that different yard sticks had been applied to while dealing with the members of parliament from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha who were caught on tape for taking bribes for allocating MPLAD funds to a self styled social organisation.
While the Lok Sabha members have been suspended till March 22,2006 for their involvement, Rajya sabha MPs face expulsion.
"This is a case of how much is the involvement of the MP concerned and what kind of incriminating evidence that is available. When I saw it first then I could make out while some would get away, others may not," he said.
