Sacked: BSP leader who said Rahul can’t be PM as Sonia is a foreigner

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati removed Jai Prakash Singh from the post of party national coordinator on Tuesday, a day after he claimed that Congress president Rahul Gandhi cannot become the country's prime minister due to his “mother's foreign origin”.

Mayawati's action comes at a time when Opposition parties in the country are trying to put up a united front against the Narendra Modi-led BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. “I have come to know about BSP national coordinator Jai Prakash Singh's speech. He has taken a stance at variance with the BSP's ideology, and also made personal remarks against the leadership of rival parties. As this is his personal opinion, he has been removed from his post with immediate effect,” news agency ANI quoted her as saying.

Jai Prakash Singh had commented on the foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi, former Congress president and Rahul Gandhi's mother, in an effort to position the BSP supremo as a better candidate for the top post. “It is high time Mayawati became the country's prime minister,” Jai Prakash Singh had said at the party's first workers' conference on Monday. “After playing a pivotal role in making HD Kumaraswamy the chief minister of Karnataka, Mayawati has emerged as a powerful politician. She is the only 'dabang' (fearless) leader who can stop the winning chariot of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the electoral battle.”