After the deposition of CNN-IBN television channel editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai, the special Lok Sabha committee headed by V Kishore Chandra Deo here on Monday moved ahead and sent summons to some key players for August 18 in the cash-for-votes scam.

Those listed for recording evidence next, according to Deo, are Samajwadi Party MP Reoti Raman Singh, Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former aide of BJP leader L K Advani, Sanjeev Saxena, a supposed aide of SP general secretary Amar Singh, and Raja Hindustani, a former BJP Yuva Morcha activist.

Sources said Sardesai told members in reply to questions that it might have been the presumption of BJP members, but he had made no promise to telecast the sting operation on July 22 as claimed by them. He said once BJP members Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bhagora had brought bundles of currency notes amounting to Rs 1 crore into the House, he had decided not to telecast the operation. Sardesai, according to sources, maintained that the channel, in accordance with its own code of ethics, felt called upon to speak to other people too whose names figured in the episode.

He said the channel found it necessary to tie some loose ends.

CNN-IBN, Sardesai maintained, had the right to telecast the operation. He handed over two more tapes, one visual and the other audio, to the committee along with a full transcript.

He denied the charge that the tapes had been doctored. The tapes are likely to be circulated among the members on Tuesday.

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