The Hindu : National : Kulkarni has not been primary member since 2006, says BJP

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Kulkarni has not been primary member since 2006, says BJP

Neena Vyas

The ghost of ‘cash-for-votes’ sting haunts party leaders

— FILE Photo: PTI

Sudheendra Kulkarni.

NEW DELHI: Sudheendra Kulkarni, who functioned as a personal political adviser to Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani, has not been even a primary member of the Bharatiya Janata Party since 2006. The party has, therefore, rubbished his televised assertion that he has now decided to end his association with the party.

Party office secretary Shyam Jhajhu confirmed to The Hindu: “Mr. Kulkarni was earlier a member of the party and was an office-bearer in the position of secretary. However, since the end of Mr. Advani’s presidency in 2005-06, he was removed from all party positions, and he has not been even a primary member since then. Therefore, the question of his resignation does not arise.”

Other party leaderssaid they had refrained from commenting on or criticising Mr. Kulkarni’s activities because of his close association with Mr. Advani. It was Mr. Advani who had made him a member of the campaign committee for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Authoritative party sources confirmed that at the recently concluded ‘chintan baithak,’ the composition of the campaign committee was questioned. Leaders wanted to know how and why Mr. Kulkarni and some other journalists, who were not members of the party, were appointed on the campaign committee. “A decision was, in fact, taken at the ‘baithak’ that Mr. Kulkarni should no longer be associated with the party in any way. Mr. Kulkarni was told of this decision and [he] promptly announced that he had decided to part ways with the party,” the leader said.

Besides “managing” the campaign committee, Mr. Kulkarni was actively associated with the high-decibel campaign against President Pratibha Patil during the presidential election, and he was also involved in the ‘cash-for-votes’ sting operation during the confidence vote in July last. He was present at the house of the then BJP MP, Ashok Argal, when the sting was carried out and when allegedly cash was given to party MPs.

Recently, expelled party veteran Jaswant Singh stated in the television programme ‘Walk the Talk’ that he knew of the plan for a sting operation days before it happened and he had told Mr. Advani that he shouldn’t associate himself with it.

The Kishore Chandra Deo committee’s report on the matter concluded that Mr. Kulkarni had “by his own admission” noted that he had “masterminded the impugned whistle-blowing operation. He also admitted to being an active votary of the proposal that the money be placed on the table of the House … As facts reveal, Mr. Kulkarni facilitated the giving of bribes to members [of Parliament].” Finally, the committee recommended “further probe” by an appropriate investigative agency.

Privately, party leaders are asking what this means: does it mean the BJP had planned the sting? If it was a sting, how did our senior leaders know about it days in advance? How Sohail Hindustani, a character in the sting play, was introduced to Mr. Jaswant Singh several days before the sting? Who arranged that meeting? The party is also searching for answers.

One senior leader said that because of the high level of distrust between president Rajnath Singh and Mr. Advani, who was projected as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, Mr. Singh allowed Mr. Advani to pack the campaign committee with his own men; Mr. Kulkarni was one of them. “This was to rule out the possibility of the Advani-led faction in the party blaming the party chief for anything that may have gone wrong in the campaign … as it did,” a senior leader said.

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