The Hindu : Charge against Judev baseless: BJP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 17, 2003

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Charge against Judev baseless: BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV. 16. The Bharatiya Janata Party today denied allegations of corruption against the Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Dilip Singh Judev, who is the party's favourite for the post of Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh where polling is due on December 1.

On March 13, 2001 the former party president, Bangaru Laxman, was forced to resign after he was caught on camera in a sting operation accepting Rs. 1 lakh in cash, which he later said was a donation to the party. Today The Indian Express carried a report that Mr. Judev had been caught on a video CD accepting money from a man claiming to represent an Australian mining company seeking leases in Chhattisgarh and Orissa.

BJP leaders responded angrily to the allegation, describing the surfacing of the tape as a Congress-hatched conspiracy. In Delhi, the party spokesperson and general secretary, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said the allegation against Mr. Judev was "baseless'' even while he charged the Congress with resorting to "low tactics'' by "fabricating'' such materials. And in Raipur, Mr. Judev himself was reported by agencies as having totally denied any wrongdoing.

Mr. Naqvi demanded that the Election Commission "immediately'' step in to stop publication and telecasting of all such reports. He even offered the help of the Central Bureau of Investigation to the Election Commission, but did not clarify what role the CBI could play in censoring news reports.

On Saturday itself, the BJP had said it "feared'' the Congress was hatching a "conspiracy'' to damage the image of the party's chief ministerial candidates. Although Mr. Judev has not been officially declared as the BJP's choice for the Chief Minister's post, some senior leaders had hinted that this was only because he was not a tribal and the BJP did not want to unleash a tribal versus non-tribal campaign by the Congress.

The BJP said it had information that the Congress was also planning to release a series of stories in newspapers against its chief ministerial candidates - Uma Bharati in Madhya Pradesh, Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Madanlal Khurana in Delhi - to tarnish their image ahead of polls.

Over the last several weeks, the BJP has repeatedly alleged that the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Ajit Jogi, was guilty of fraud - the party has questioned his tribal status and even his date of birth, issues which are the subjects of dispute in court. Today, according to an agency report from Raipur, the BJP State unit has charged that Mr. Jogi and his son, Amit Jogi, had conspired against Mr. Judev.

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