Shahi: No role in Kushwaha entry on my tenure’
Outgoing UP BJP president Surya Pratap Shahi threw a bombshell on Monday when he announced that he had no role in inducting ex-BSP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha into the Bharatiya Janata Party and that the episode will remain a blot on his tenure.
“It was a decision taken by the party high command and I was informed of the same merely two hours before the press conference in Delhi. Besides this, I had no role to play though as state president I could not back out,” he said while addressing a function to welcome the newly appointed state president Dr Laxmikant Bajpai to the party office here.
Mr Surya Pratap Shahi further said that he thought it was appropriate for him to clear the air on the Kushwaha issue before demitting office. “I did not clarify earlier because elections were on and anything I said then could have caused damage to the party,” he said.
Mr Shahi also rebuffed the allegation that he had taken money to induct Babu Singh Kushwaha into the party.
“I am not guilty of having taken even a single paisa. In fact, I met Babu Singh Kushwaha for the first time at the press conference held to announce his induction,” he explained.
However, Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Vinay Katiyar, tried to do some damage control in his speech and said, “We will not hesitate and will do whatever orders the leadership gives us.”
***
Free Kushwaha, demand OBC and MBC leaders
AGE CORRESPONDENT
Lucknow, April 16
Representatives from OBC caste groups and Most Backward Caste (MBC) groups have joined hands to demand the release of former BSP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha who is presently in jail on charges of corruption in the NRHM scam. Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Dhaniram Balidani, convener of the proposed front of OBC and MBC leaders, said that the leaders were sending a memorandum to the President to draw her attention to the one-sided investigations being done by the CBI in the NRHM scam. “Mr Kushwaha has been implicated in the NRHM scam as a part of the larger conspiracy to gag the voices of OBC and MBC leaders. He has spent over a month in jail whereas those who actually swindled off money in the scam have not even been arrested because they all belong to a particular caste,” Mr Balidani said.
He further said that Babu Singh Kushwaha had emerged as the undisputed leader of OBCs and MBCs in UP and it was because of this that he had been put in jail because some other OBC leaders do not want their leadership to be challenged.
Post new comment