A day later Sangh throws weight behind beleaguered Gadkari
By NVONews.Com Special Correspondent,
New Delhi: A day after being taken aback by the media exposures the BJP and Sangh Parivar top shots threw their weight behind the party chief, Nitin Gadkari. They are not going to leave him in lurch as they did to the then party president, Bangaru Laxman, when he was caught on camera accepting money from fake arms dealers way back in 2001.
Though there are reports that the RSS may do a rethink on getting Gadkari the second term after January 17 when his first term ends, yet the BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani on Wednesday strongly backed him by stating that “Nitinji has come clean by asking for an inquiry by the Department of Company Affairs.”
He said the allegations against Gadkari were about “standards of business and not misuse of power or corruption”. “I am of the view that the BJP should be different and should not claim immunity on either scale or nature of the allegations.”
Instead of commenting on the media stories on Gadkari the former deputy Prime Minister put all the blame on government which, according to him, is trying to neutralise the “unprecedented” corruption charges against it.
Similarly reports from Nagpur said that the RSS is not yet ready to dump Gadkari, whom it had chosen in 2010. In fact, Gadkari was on Wednesday the chief guest at a function in Nagpur where RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat delivered his annual Vijayadashmi address.
Bhagwat, while talking to media, refused to comment on corruption allegations against Gadkari, saying it was a “matter of the party”.
“I have already touched the issue of corruption (in general) in my speech and if you want to know more, you can speak to Manmohan Vaidya, the Prachar Pramukh of the organisation,” he told reporters after the address.
Vaidya, on the other hand, said the allegations of corruption against Gadkari “are in the media only”.
“A media trial is on and the concerned person (Gadkari) will put forth his views before the party,” he said.
Gadkari, who attended the function, in the RSS attire, however, left the venue without talking to media.
The Wednesday reaction of Advani, Bhagwat and Vaidya is a significant departure from the position taken on Tuesday when there was hardly any BJP leaders available to comment before the media. Several of its leaders refused to accept the TV channels invitation on the discussion on the issue and there was no one to put the point of Gadkari.
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