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NEW DELHI: India's embattled coalition government has been hit by allegations it is offering bribes and lucrative jobs as it tries to muster the support needed to survive a parliamentary confidence vote next week.
If the government loses, the world's largest democracy will go into early elections, and opposition parties - especially the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - will be given a big political boost.
With the stakes so high, opponents of the dominant Congress party have alleged big money backhanders are on offer to fence-sitting MPs who could tip next Tuesday's vote either way.
The leader of the Communist Party of India, A.B. Bardhan, publicly accused the government of putting together a war chest containing millions of dollars of bribe money.
"No one has principles any more," Bardhan fumed in a public meeting on Monday. "It's not a question of a few million, but 250 million rupees (5.8 million dollars) for horse-trading."
The confidence vote was triggered by the withdrawal of support from a bloc of communist and left-wing parties opposed to a civilian nuclear deal that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh struck with the United States in 2005.
The government says the deal would help meet India's exploding energy demands.
The left and the BJP say the deal would tie India too close to Washington, and they are also railing over high inflation, notably food and fuel prices.
A rebel MP from the Samajwadi Party -- which has promised to vote with the coalition -- claimed he has also been offered a financial windfall or a top job should he tow the party line and help keep the government in office.
"I had expressed my objection to supporting the government," Munawar Hasan told AFP by telephone from his parliamentary constituency in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
"Very soon after that, I received a call on behalf of parties in New Delhi telling me that I could get a cabinet post or money - 200 million or 250 million rupees - if I voted for the government," Hasan alleged.
The government has angrily denied "either directly or indirectly" approaching Hasan, or any other MP.
"We are seeking support of MPs no doubt, but there are no offers of money or ministerships," a Congress spokesman said.
Party leader Sonia Gandhi has predicted the government will sail through the test - but the numbers suggest there could be plenty of nail-biting next week.
At present, the government has 225 assured seats plus 39 Samajwadi Party MPs it can count on in India's 545-member Lok Sabha, or lower house - leaving it still slightly short of the 272 votes it needs to win.
The BJP, who themselves lost a confidence vote in 1999 by a single ballot, now smell blood and has slammed what it said were the Congress party's "desperate efforts to stay in power."
"Trying to save the government by this method is unacceptable," BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said, saying his party was also lobbying hard for support but with "no money involved."
Still, few Indians find the allegations at all surprising - given that for many people paying bribes remains a part of everyday life when dealing with officialdom.
Author and political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said high-level corruption was something that is "very difficult to prove and so it thrives."
Only eight years ago, former Congress premier P.V. Narasimha Rao was found guilty of bribing MPs to win a confidence vote in 1993. But he was cleared by a higher court 18 months later.
And the Indian chapter of global anti-graft watchdog Transparency International said the wheeling and dealing of coalition politics meant corruption was only to be expected.
Bribing MPs for votes "is not unknown in Indian politics" said Transparency International's India representative, R.H. Tahiliani.
In the present context, "not all MPs want to face elections" and will do anything to survive, he said.
- AFP/yb
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