Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Uma Bharti on Tuesday criticised former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for defending late Pramod Mahajan's son Rahul Mahajan.
"Vajpayee put BJP cadres to shame by defending Rahul Mahajan in the drug abuse case. What message does he want to give to them by doing so?" Bharti, president of Bharatiya Janshakti Party and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, told reporters in Raipur.
Uma attacked Vajpayee when the reporters sought her opinion on the statement made by him in Manali on Sunday in which he said, "Such mistakes happen in young age".
Bharti also ruled out any possibility of returning to the BJP fold. "The Bharatiya Janshakti Party has got good public response in several states in a very short period, and I will work on expanding the party's base," she said.
She launched the party in April this year at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh.
On her maiden visit to Chhattisgarh, Bharati held discussions with several senior dissident BJP leaders, including BJP MP and former Chhattisgarh state unit party president Nandkumar Sai, on Monday and Tuesday, to establish her party in the state that was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in November 2000.