Cash-for-votes scandal

The cash-for-votes scandal was an Indian political scandal allegedly masterminded by then Opposition Party Bharatiya Janata Party politician Sudheendra Kulkarni in which the United Progressive Alliance, the majority-holding parliamentary-party alliance of India led by Sonia Gandhi, allegedly bribed Bhartiya Janta Party MPs in order to survive a confidence vote on 22 July 2008. The vote in the Lok Sabha arose after the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front withdrew support from the government, who wanted to pursue an Indo-US nuclear deal.

In 2008, the 123 Agreement signed between the United States of America and the Republic of India is known as the U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement or Indo-US nuclear deal. The framework for this agreement was a 18 July 2005, joint statement by then Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and then U.S. President George W. Bush, under which India agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and to place all its civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and, in exchange, the United States agreed to work toward full civil nuclear cooperation with India.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) that was supporting the Dr Manmohan Singh government, objected to the agreement siting reasons that proposal would see the United States supply nuclear technology to India in return for India agreeing to United Nations inspections of its nuclear programs and the splitting of the civil and military aspects of those programs. CPI(M) believed that this would cause India to be effectively subservient to the US. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also objected, on the grounds that the inspections could impede development of the country's nuclear arms program.

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