E-Paper
BJP cannot give up core issues: Kalyan
FORMER UTTAR Pradesh Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Kalyan Singh has said the BJP is not the ?bonded labour? of any party. The statement was in direct reference to the BJP?s partners in the National Democratic Alliance.
FORMER UTTAR Pradesh Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Kalyan Singh has said the BJP is not the ‘bonded labour’ of any party. The statement was in direct reference to the BJP’s partners in the National Democratic Alliance.
This comment may not be music to the ears of the party top brass, especially its newly appointed president Rajnath Singh.
Kalyan Singh told HT, “NDA partners should also realise that they need the BJP’s help”. He said the BJP could not give up the basic issues on which the party was founded.
“The BJP’s stand vis-a-vis Article 370, the Uniform Civil Code and construction of the Ram Temple remains unchanged. In fact, the party has succeeded in convincing its partners in the NDA to a great extent,” Singh asserted. He said both the BJP and its partners in the NDA were interdependent. “Our alliance partners have realised that Article 370 is a hurdle to development of Jammu & Kashmir and that resolution of the Ayodhya dispute is necessary,” he said.
Referring to Uma Bharti, Singh said since the BJP Parliamentary Board had expelled her, the question of her return had to be decided by the board.
Asked whether the BJP would expel Alka Rai, its candidate for the Mohammdabad seat, who shared the dais with Uma Bharati on February 8 at an election rally there, Singh brushed aside the question. He said, “We welcome anybody’s or any party’s support to our candidate.”
Alka Rai, the widow of Krishnanand Rai, is the BJP nominee for Mohammadabad by-polls.
Krishnanand was killed on November 29. The by-polls are scheduled for February 16.
Asked whether he was really not interested in being projected as the next chief minister of UP by the party, the former chief minister paused for a while and said he was not averse to accepting the offer. “Whatever I have achieved is enough.
But, as a loyal activist of the party, I am ready to follow the party’s directive, whatsoever it may be, in this regard,” he added.
On the question of Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s admission that Kalyan Singh was behind the Samajwadi Party forming the government over two years ago in UP, Singh retorted, “I did not compel Mulayam, but there are many issues which I wouldn’t like to discuss.”
