BJP suspends Kirti Azad for taking on Jaitley
New Delhi: The BJP on Wednesday suspended MP Kirti Azad, who has alleged large-scale corruption in Delhi's cricket body when it was headed by now Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
"Yes, he has been suspended for anti-party activities," Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary Anil Jain told IANS, reading out an official statement.
BJP spokesman G.V.L. Narasimha Rao added that the party acted against Azad, a three-time Lok Sabha member from Darbhanga in Bihar, for taking an "anti-BJP line".
Azad, a member of the 1983 Indian cricket team which won the World Cup, is the first BJP MP to be suspended since Narendra Modi became the prime minister in May last year.
Azad has for years carried on a campaign against what he calls major corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), which was headed by Jaitley for 13 years until 2013.
Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party dubbed Azad's suspension "unfortunate" and said he was being punished for battling corruption.
Although Azad's campaign against the alleged corruption in the DDCA began years ago, matters came to a head after Kejriwal took up the issue in a major way following a CBI raid on the Delhi Secretariat this month.
Despite denials by the CBI that it never searched Kejriwal's office and it was after his principal secretary Rajendra Kumar for corruption, the AAP leader has said that CBI officials did enter his room in search of a file on the DDCA and Jaitley.
It was then that the BJP began to gently exert pressure on Azad to back off from his campaign as it was embarrassing the party and Jaitley too.
And disregarding a reported request from BJP president Amit Shah, Azad held a press conference to expose the alleged wrongdoings in the DDCA on Sunday. He also stunned the BJP by speaking on the issue in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
On his part, Jaitley has filed a defamation suit against Kejriwal and other Aam Aadmi Party leaders and sought Rs.10 crore in damages. Azad then went public and asked Jaitley to sue him too.
Earlier on Wednesday, actor-turned-BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha urged the party not to take action against Azad. But with both Modi and Shah openly backing Jaitley, it was clear Azad's days in the BJP were numbered.
(IANS)
