Vijayawada: A letter by the BJP's national Mahila Morcha in-charge and former Union minister, D Purandeswari, to the BJP national president, Amit Shah, about the BJP keeping silent when the Telugu Desam is encouraging defected MLAs, has triggered a fresh controversy in AP politics. Being an alliance partner of the State Government, the BJP should have objected to the defection, Ms Purandeswari felt.
Ms Purandeswari is the first leader to point out this critical issue of defection and place it before the big bosses of the party. TD-BJP relations may be strained in AP because of it, according to senior members of the BJP. Ms Purandeswari, in her letter, has stated that people will not forgive the BJP if it turns a blind eye to the unethical practice of encouraging defections.
“Speakers of Legislative Assemblies, under whose purview the decision to disqualify such defected members lies, have for years together kept silent, without initiating action, thereby mocking democracy and Law,” Ms Purandheswari observed. “On March 2, it was reported that Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan had expressed to a certain leader that he wouldn’t administer oath to such members, who had not resigned from their old parties,” she said in her letter.
The former minister also stated that the Governor went on to say that such members could resign and within six months seek re-election. “Ironically, the same Governor has administered the oath to these new inductions into the Council of Ministers,” Ms Purandeswari observed. She has sought the intervention of party national president as encouraging defections would tarnish the image of the BJP.
Her letter has landed the BJP in a dilemma. “The TD is our alliance partner but our national Mahila Morcha in- charge is levelling serious allegations against the TD Govern-ment in AP,” a senior BJP member said. This needs immediate attention of party bosses, he added.
