The Hindu : Front Page : Uma Bharti rocks BJP

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Thursday, Nov 11, 2004

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Front Page

Uma Bharti rocks BJP

By Javed M. Ansari

— Photo: V. Sudershan

BJP leader Uma Bharti with RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav at the RSS headquarters in New Delhi on Wednesday. Ms. Bharti earlier stormed out of a BJP meeting.

NEW DELHI, NOV. 10. The Bharatiya Janata Party today suspended the mercurial former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, from the primary membership of the party and served a show-cause notice on her asking why she should not be expelled from the organisation.

Ms. Bharti was suspended after she walked out of a meeting of the party office-bearers, challenging the BJP president, L.K. Advani, to take disciplinary action against her for speaking out against some of her party colleagues. The entire episode took place in full view of the media and in the presence of the entire top brass of the party, including the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Today's dramatic developments brought into the open the simmering tension in the party involving a number of top leaders.

The BJP has witnessed a series of public spats in the past few weeks involving the "second line of leadership" in the party. It was widely believed that with Mr. Advani becoming the party president, the internecine quarrels in the party would end. A rapprochement seemed on the cards a few days ago when Ms. Bharti called on Mr. Advani and apologised for her "outbursts" and joined his new team as a general secretary.

However, her ire appears to have been stoked once again by what she claimed was the "disinformation campaign being carried out against her and attempts to pull her down," by some leaders in the party. She gave vent to her feelings at today's meeting of the new team called by Mr. Advani.

Mr. Advani was in the middle of his speech decrying the tendency of some of his party leaders to talk against their colleagues in public. "Workers keep asking why are Umaji or Naqvi behaving in such a manner. This kind of conduct does incalculable harm to the party. The impression that is being created is as if the whole party has come to be limited to these leaders. There is a limit to how much indiscipline the party can tolerate," he said.

Ms. Bharti, who was sitting in the front row along with some of the other office-bearers, interrupted Mr. Advani. "Some leaders here who are in the Rajya Sabha spend all their time giving off-the-record briefings to the media, forcing some of us who are in the field to rebut these things on record to save our reputations," she said. Taken aback, Mr. Advani sought to restrain Ms. Bharti reminding her that he had appealed to everybody to put an end to the allegations and counter-allegations. "I have said that this matter is closed. It is closed for everybody," he said.

Ms. Bharti however, was unrelenting and rebuffed the former party president, Venkaiah Naidu, who tried to restrain her. She got up from her front row seat, insisting that the issue be discussed right there. Mr. Advani told her forcefully that the issue was over. She immediately rose from her seat and staged a walkout but not before challenging the BJP president to take disciplinary action against her.

She refused to speak to the media and drove straight to the RSS office in Jhandewalan and remained there for about three hours. The RSS, however, refused to comment on the developments. Ram Madhav, RSS spokesperson, indicated that they might have something to say when the issue was discussed at an appropriate forum at a later date.

The BJP leadership put up a brave face. Mr. Vajpayee and the senior party leader, Jaswant Singh, who shared the dais with Mr. Advani, watched the drama unfold before them in disbelief. In his concluding remarks, Mr. Advani referred to the incident saying that all the leaders and party workers were duty-bound to maintain discipline.

Half an hour later, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and senior party leader, Jaswant Singh, came out and briefed the media on the disciplinary action taken against Ms. Bharti. "In view of Ms. Bharti's conduct, all the office-bearers unanimously recommended that she should not continue as general secretary of the party and be suspended from its primary membership. The party president has accepted the recommendations," he said.

Senior BJP leaders later told the media that disciplinary action had become inevitable and expressed the confidence that Ms. Bharti's suspension would not have any adverse effect on the party, not even in her home State of Madhya Pradesh.

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