NEW DELHI: India’s media lambasted 11 federal lawmakers said by a TV station and a website to have been filmed secretly taking cash in exchange for asking questions in parliament, and one MP was suspended from the upper house.

“MPs on sale for just Rs10,000,” a headline in the Times of India said on Tuesday. The amount is equivalent to $217.

“Men who sold our House,” said the Hindustan Times, another national daily.

TV news channel Aaj Tak and www.cobrapost.com said on Monday its reporters filmed 11 lawmakers, including six from the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and one from the ruling Congress party, in a sting operation.

Aaj Tak showed clips in which some MPs were seen pocketing what appeared to be wads of currency, while others put them down on the table.

Protests broke out in towns in north India and television showed people burning an effigy in Gwalior in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, shouting angry slogans against politicians.

On Tuesday, the upper house suspended one MP videotaped in the sting pending an inquiry by an ethics committee.

Lal Kishan Advani, opposition leader in the lower house and the BJP chief, told party members the incident had shamed them.

“This incident has tarnished the image of our party. We hang our head in shame,” Advani said, according to BJP spokeswoman Sushma Swaraj.

The lower house speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, has given the MPs until Wednesday to explain themselves before a final decision on their fate is made.

He has also asked them not to attend parliament until a probe is completed.

There has been no comment from the MPs.

“It is the tip of the iceberg,” political analyst N. Bhaskar Rao said. “Such corruption was there earlier but it is far more blatant now and lawmakers do not think they have to fear any consequences. This is worrying.”

Aaj Tak and www.cobrapost.com said the deputies were offered between 15,000 rupees ($325) and more than 100,000 rupees ($2,175) in cash to ask questions during parliament’s question hour.

Using a hidden camera, journalists posed as representatives of a fictitious organization lobbying for the welfare of small-scale manufacturers.

Politicians in the world’s largest democracy are widely seen as corrupt — a survey published by a newspaper over the weekend showed 98 per cent of people think that.

Several state and federal politicians face dozens of criminal charges each, from murder to kidnapping and extortion.

But cases often languish in the courts for years, sometimes decades.

In 2001, a news portal secretly videotaped top public and military officials accepting wads of cash to swing a fake arms deal. It led to the resignation of the then defence minister as well as the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

But those behind the sting faced tax investigations and some said they were harassed by the authorities.

Foreign Minister Natwar Singh quit this month, after earlier being suspended, following the Volcker report on the Iraq food-for-oil scandal naming him.—Reuters