Action against Keshubhai: Mehta

BJP rebels group on Friday termed the central leadership's issue of show cause notices to two of its senior leader and suspension of two MPs as "the beginning of the end of the party in Gujarat".

BJP rebels group on Friday termed the central leadership's issue of show cause notices to two of its senior leader and suspension of two MPs as "the beginning of the end of the party in Gujarat".

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"By taking this step, they don't know what they have done. This is the beginning of the end of the party in the state. With this step the BJP will be erased from the Gujarat's map," former Chief Minister Suresh Mehta said here.

The rebels, who had openly worked for the victory of the Congress in the present state assembly elections, received a jolt when they came to know the news of notices and suspensions.

"We can only expect this from leaders like LK Advani and Narendra Modi," Gordhan Zadafia, chairman of Sardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti, under whose banner the rebels had fought against the BJP, said.

"The leader (Keshubhai Patel) became respectable for the BJP just ahead of the elections and leaders like Arun Jaitley used to frequent his house for guidance.

But after Gujarat elections have got over, he has once again become disrespectable for them, which is evident from the notice slapped on him," Mehta said.

"Now, when the BJP is aware that they are going to loose the Gujarat elections they are trying to find scapegoats in the form of Keshubhai Patel," Mehta, who had resigned from the BJP ahead of the elections, told PTI.

"Leaders like Modi had also indulged in a lot of anti-party activities like defeating Shankarsinh Vaghela in the Lok Sabha elections of 1996," he said.