| Sparks fly in BJP meet as Sushma, Joshi confront Rajnath | | | Agencies
New Delhi, Mar 8: With hardly a month left for the Lok Sabha polls, infighting within the BJP brass broke out afresh.
Senior leaders Murli Manohar Joshi and Sushma Swaraj raised a storm at a meeting of the party's central election committee here on Saturday, posing tough questions to chief Rajnath Singh.
Joshi, a sitting MP from Varanasi, is unhappy over media reports that the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will contest from his seat. He asked Singh if a decision had been taken to replace him with Modi. "How come there has been a series of reports in the media claiming that Modi will be fielded from Varanasi? Has any decision been taken? If not, why aren't you denying it," Joshi asked Rajnath and Modi. What followed were some sharp exchanges between Joshi and Rajnath.
Swaraj, who has spoken out over the inclusion of tainted leaders in the BJP of late, questioned the party’s tie-up decisions "without proper consultation." Saturday’s developments are a throwback to 2009, when infighting torpedoed the party’s electoral prospects in the general elections.
Swaraj, on the other hand, lashed out when BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu suggested that a parliamentary board meeting be called to discuss pending issues in Andhra Pradesh (read alliance with TDP). She asked the BJP chief why no parliamentary board meeting was called to discuss alliance with Ramvilas Paswan, who had been abusing the BJP in all this years, or to approve merger of tainted B Sriramulu's BSR Congress.
"Who is taking these decisions? Even during day when the BJP had just two MPs all such decision were taken by the parliamentary board. The practise is not being followed," Swaraj said.
She was upset also with the fact that despite having never backed the controversial 'Bellary Brothers', an impression has been created that she was their political mentor. "Didn't you people take money from them to contest election? Why drag my name?" she asked a leader from Karnataka during the meeting.
Sushma left the meeting midway, triggering news reports that she walked out in protest. "Going to Bhopal for important party meetings there," Swaraj wrote on Twitter to set the record straight. |
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