SENIOR Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) leader Ram Jethmalani launched a scathing attack on Nitin Gadkari Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday (November 6), demanding his immediate resignation as party president.
Jethmalani claimed that several senior leaders are against the continuance of Gadkari as president, following corruption charges against him.
“I am in touch with Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha (all Lok Sabha members). We seem to be on the same wave length…We are clearly of the opinion that resignation of the party President is imminently called for,” he told reporters.
The senior lawyer also said that he had written a letter to LK Advani on behalf of party members who were against Gadkari, but refused to divulge the contents.
Jethmalani added that Gadkari should not be given another term as president, since it would harm the party in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The recent BJP national council meeting had amended the party’s constitution to enable Gadkari to get a second term.
His son Mahesh, who is also an eminent lawyer, on Monday (November 5) quit BJP national executive, saying he cannot be associated with it as long as Gadkari remains the party president.
Gadkari has been under attack from various quarters after a media expose of the alleged dubious funding of a company run by him. He has refused to quit maintaining that he is ready to face any probe on the issue.
Jethmalani said that when he made the demand for Gadkari’s resignation from London last month, he thought the party president would call him to discuss it.
He added that Gadkari did not call him. In fact, RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy called him and requested him not to make further statements on the issue.
Jethmalani said he has been trying to talk about the issue with the party leaders internally. Asked if he was ready for any disciplinary action by the party, he said he would be happy to be expelled for making his demand public.
Reiterating his view that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi would be the best prime ministerial candidate of BJP, he said Modi does not have time to become party president. Jethmalani said that as per the BJP constitution, the senior most vice president should take over.
