In an attempt to retrieve the anti-graft campaign yielded to Anna Hazare and camp, the Bhartiya Janata Party on Thursday set its 84-year old patriarch Lal Krishna Advani on yet another Yatra to mobilise people against corruption.

Advani himself announced his Yatra plans, modalities of which are yet to be worked out, soon after challenging the government in the Lok Sabha on Thursday to send him to jail as he was more guilty than the two former party MPs arrested on Tuesday in the cash-for-vote scam during the 2008 confidence vote.

He also owned up the sting operation that exposed the scam to come to the rescue of his former aide Sudheendra Kulkarni, who has been made an accused and would have been arrested on Tuesday with the two ex-MPs and socialist leader Amar Singh but for being abroad and ordered to appear at the next hearing on September 19.

Not satisfied even after making a statement in the House on the last day of the monsoon session on the "most stinking" scandal of independent India that "sullied not only the political spectrum but also the Indian democracy for which the nation is known," he announced his new Yatra that he plans to finish before the next Parliament session late November.

It will be something like his Ayodhya Yatra to campaign for good governance and clean government, good conduct and protection of institutions that sustain the democracy and against graft and black money, he said. He wants to rebut the Prime Minister's contention that the poll victory of the Congress in 2009 had legitimatise the corruption of bribing the MPs to vote for his government.

"In no democracy of the world, crimes and misdeeds of a ruling party are legitimatised by elections," he affirmed, pointing out that the UPA government's legitimacy is finishing every day, but it appears the government still does not think that its mandate is being exhausted.

Decrying arrest of former MPs Faggan Kulaste and Mahavir Singh Bhagora, Advani said they were in fact "whistle-blowers" who did not pocket Rs 1 crore given as bribe to vote for the government but presented it in the House to show their honesty in the service of democracy and yet they have been made accused and locked up while those who took money and voted to let government remain in power sit comfortably in Parliament.

"If these whistle-blowers are accused, I am a bigger accused as then leader of Opposition, I could have stopped them, prevented them (from putting money on the table of the Lok Sabha) but I didn't because I felt they were doing no wrong. It becomes my moral responsibility to own up if they are guilty," Advani told a Press conference here soon after challenging the government in the Lok Sabha to put him in jail. "I am ready to go to Tihar," he declared.

"Agar vo do aparadhi hain, to muze bhi jail me daaliye. Main bhi jail me jane ko taiyar hun," he told the House amid pandemonium from the ruling benches. These concluding words may or may not come on record as Speaker Meira Kumar had adjourned the House by the time he came to crux of this statement. These words and the adjournment announcement came simultaneously.

Asked if he would tell the court what he said in the House and then in the Press conference, Advani said no need as he has said it publicly. "The government knows it would not gain" by putting him in jail and hence it would not accept his challenge, he added.

Nor did he hesitate in taking on a sarcastic question as to whether he would plan his Yatra via Bellary and Ahmedabad, quipping that it is "a suggestion for action" and he would consider and may even accept it. The route and dates will be finalised in consultation with the party colleagues, he said, pointing out that his Yatra has the approval of BJP President Nitin Gadkari.

He said the 2G spectrum scam was certainly the biggest scandal in terms of money involved but still he would treat the cash-for-vote or cash-for-retaining power as the biggest scandal that has sullied the Indian democracy and in this regards, he does not disbelieve a WikiLeaks revelation couple of months ago on an aide of senior Congress leader close to power showing to a US diplomat shelves of money to buy the MPs and telling him that only concern was whether those bribed would vote or not for the government. They were not doing on the sly and not shameful of this act, Advani added.

Advani also blasted the government for sitting over the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports on two other big scandals of Air India and gas and tabling them in Parliament on the last day of the monsoon session on Thursday.