NEW DELHI: As a season of stings unfolds, BJP hit back at UPA's latest "expose" claiming the "cash-for-vote" scandal to be a saffron set-up by releasing "evidence" of Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh’s "links" with the alleged attempt to bribe MPs ahead of the July 22 trust vote in Lok Sabha.

With RJD chief Lalu Prasad teaming up with SP boss Mulayam Singh and LJP leader Ramvilas Paswan to release a CD showing Faggan Singh Kulaste, one of the three MPs who said they were offered bribes, stating that he had hardly ever met Amar Singh, BJP said the new "sting" was a cut and paste job stringing together unconnected bits. BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley said the CD put out by the three leaders was a rehash of the failed sting presented by expelled party leader Uma Bharti. The BJP rebel's move had fallen flat as it was easily established that the CD had been shot after the trust vote, knocking the claim that Jaitley had "planted" the bribe money.

With an alleged Amar Singh aide Sanjiv Saxena, accused of delivering Rs 1 crore in bribe money to the three BJP MPs, being part of the action in the new CDs as well, Jaitley concentrated his attack on Monday to establishing his links with Amar Singh. Labelling the new CDs as "fabrications and lies", the BJP leader said he had laid hands on "documemtary" proof of Saxena’s connection with Amar Singh.

Addressing a press conference, Jaitley said that in the admission form submitted by Saxena's son at a Delhi University college, the submission under "father's official address" was the 27, Lodhi Estate residence-cum-office of Amar Singh. “This clearly shows what we know, that Sanjiv Saxena was working for Amar Singh and regularly contacted people on his behalf. There is bound be more evidence of a similar nature," Jaitley said.

The BJP leader also argued that it was "strange" that while Saxena had been unavailable after the BJP sting, he had featured in two "collusive stings". He demanded a thorough probe into the circumstances under which the CDs had been made and sought to draw Prime Minister Manmohan Singh into the picture by saying, "It is for the PM to decide to what extent his ministers can go."

While the BJP attacked the two ministers and Mulayam as a "cabinet committee on fabrication and forgery", the suggestion that there was a ginger group of sorts active in the UPA was a worrying thought for some Congress leaders as well. Some in the ruling party wondered at the alacrity with which Lalu has jumped into the frame and made common cause with not just SP, but Paswan as well.

While Lalu's efforts to mollify Paswan, who has been miffed ever since he lost out on the railways portfolio, have not succeeded, on Monday the LJP leader hosted the release of the CD. It has been quite a while since Lalu and Paswan have been seen on the same dias, triggering speculation of a new pressure group with the two Bihar leaders pitching in for the powerful SP boss and Amar Singh.

BJP said the party was keeping its legal options open, but hoped that the parliamentary committee under senior Congress MP V Kishore Chandra Deo would not do a "partisan" job. "We hope the prestige of Parliament is protected," Jaitley said. He also argued that the Supreme Court ruling in the JMM bribery case was flawed as it let off MPs who received bribes, but pointed out that there was no immunity for bribe givers.