MP Saini rant goes on, BJP stays silent

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 17

The BJP’s lack of follow-up on the notice to Kurukshetra Member of Parliament Raj Kumar Saini for his activities and utterances during and after the Jat agitation, marred by violence and arson, seems to have given the MP a free run as he goes about organising his programmes.

Sources in the party have said that the party’s inaction is being seen as an attempt to soft-pedal the issue even though the MP, projecting himself as a non-Jat leader, has openly declared his intent to leave the BJP and float a new party which will watch the interests of non-Jats before the next elections.

Despite this challenge he has thrown to the state leadership which he alleges, is favouring Jats, the party has been sitting on the reply to the notice served to Saini.

Insiders maintain that the party does not want to expel the MP since it has also come to power in the state on the non-Jat card and taking action against Saini will go against it.

When contacted, state BJP president Subhash Barala, said that no action had been initiated since there was no chairman of the disciplinary committee after Dr Ganeshi Lal, occupying that position, was elevated to Governor of Odisha.

“In any case, he has already announced his decision to quit the party. Nobody is stopping him. Let him go if he wants to,” Barala maintained.

Meanwhile, Saini, who has a packed schedule with programmes in Bawal and Rewari, seems to be deliberately visiting Jat pockets in a bid to consolidate non-Jats in these areas.

“My next big programme will be in Bahadurgarh on July 1, my birthday. While I will cut a cake on the occasion, we will hold a rally also,” he stated.

Adding that his plan of quitting the BJP was final, Saini said that “his people” would soon announce the formation of the party and he would join it when the time was right.

“I have been given five years to serve the people. I am not going to compromise on that. The party is free to throw me out and that is what I have said in my reply to the notice,” he claimed.

Recently, in complete defiance of cancellation of a programme by the local administration in Rohtak’s Mokhra, the MP went ahead and staged a dharna to lodge his protest.

“The cancellation of permission cannot stop me. I will hold a programme where I want to and cancellation of permissions is not going to stop me,” he said.