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| I am no lesser BJP man: Leela Karan | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, March 16: Making a strong case for his entry in the Lok Sabha ‘in larger interest of the people of Jammu’, the former convener of Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti Leela Karan Sharma today challenged his detractors and critics to prove if he was ‘a lesser BJP man’ than anyone who claimed to be champion of the organization.
Following BJP central leadership’s keenness to field Leela Karan Sharma on Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat for the upcoming elections, some local party leaders have objecting the move by describing him as an outsider to the organization. Besides others, the Basohli MLA Jadgish Raj Sapolia had gone public with his strong opposition against Leela Karan saying that he did not belong to BJP.
Leela Karan says that his association with the BJP dates back to the days of Jana Sangh and those voicing concern over his perceived ‘outsider status’ are not aware of the fact that “what he means to BJP and what BJP means to him”. “I am perhaps one of the oldest BJP men in Jammu and Kashmir and I am genuinely hurt when somebody calls me outsider”, Leela Karan told Early Times.
Recalling his foray into active politics, Leela Karan said, “it was in 1962 when Pandit Prem Nath Dogra put me with then former MLA Rajinder Singh as incharge of his election campaign”. “I was a student then and worked hard in the Jana Sangh to win hearts of the leaders as well as people”, recalled Leela Karan as he put with regrets, “now some people are seeking to overlook my 46 years old association with the organization to term me as an outsider”.
On his journey with BJP and its previous avatars, the former Sangharsh Samiti convener said that he was pursuing a degree in Law when he was made members of the organisation’s legal cell in 1967. He recalled his association with Surinder Mohan and Ganga Ram and the works they did together in Uttar Pradesh.
“I can say with authority that I have rendered more service to the BJP than anyone of those who feel that I am an outsider”, said Leela Karan and recalled that he was the one who contested case in the court after stone pelting on a local newspaper office following BJP leader Prof Chaman Lal Gupta’s victory in the 1983 assembly elections. “I became a party on behalf of the BJP in a legal case in 1989 when then Governor Jagmohan dissolved the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly”.
He reminded the senior BJP leader Prof Chaman Lal Gupta of a 1996 incident when a statement attributed to him described a Jammu based forum as creation of ISI and the got dragged in a defamation case. “I am the one who defended him in court and that case is still going on”. In yet another stark reminder to the local BJP leaders Leela Karan said that he was member of the state executive of the BJP in 1990s when Prof Chaman Lal Gupta was its president. He said that his detractors and critics have hidden motives and are unnecessarily putting the outsider tag which is hurting him.
He said that his sole aim of contesting Lok Sabha elections to take the ‘oppressed voices’ of the people of Jammu to the highest decision making platform in the country.
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