Chandigarh: On BJP joining hands with the former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who left the Congress after being removed as the CM, BJP president J P Nadda said it was amid he had raised the border issues with the Centre many a time.
In an interview with the Indian Express, JP Nadda said, “Captain Amarinder Singh, has been an administrator and his concerns on the border issues matched ours.”
Ruling out any compromise with the Akali Dal, he said that a final decision would be taken by the BJP parliamentary board after the results. “As far as Akalis are concerned, we had been in a coalition with them and had too many difficulties. We could fight in 23 of the 117 seats but our vote share is big. Last time, too, we had been advised to leave the Akalis, but we did not. Our priority is to grow in the state. So, I don’t see much scope in compromising with them but our senior leaders in the Parliamentary Board will take a decision after the results,” he said.
As elections head towards the end in Uttar Pradesh, Nadda said that leaders like Akhilesh Yadav had “compromised” with national security and to “expose them before the electorate” was the “duty and responsibility” of the BJP.
He responded to a question on the tenuous link that his party leadership had drawn between bombs planted in bicycles, the party symbol of the Samajwadi Party, and terrorism. Similarly, Nadda said his party had “an issue” with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – against which the BJP has raised allegations of links to terrorists – coming to power in a state like Punjab which shares a 600 kilometer border with Pakistan.
While it is a big fight at Uttar Pradesh between BJP and SP, at Punjab AAP has given a tough competition to Congress.
JP Nadda said that Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav didn’t respond to the charges of releasing a terrorist from Jail, when he was CM in 2012. “We have to expose those who have a deceptive image. They are trying to portray one image, but they are anti-development people because if chief ministers support and protect terrorists in the 21st century, I think they are supporting those who are weakening the country. Akhilesh (Yadav) tries to put up a sweet face. In almost all rallies, I have connected his name with named terrorists. He has not spoken a word on such a serious charge,” Nadda said.
“I am saying Tariq Kazmi had been released by you… Khalid Mujahid was released by you and Shahabuddin too. Give me an answer. I am saying the first work you did as Chief Minister was to release these terrorists. The court procedures were going on. He wrote in the manifesto that the Muslim youth had been unnecessarily harassed. When he became Chief Minister, all those 15 cases were withdrawn,” he said.
Both Kazmi and Mujahid were part of the alleged terrorist outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami which was held responsible for the November 2007 serial blasts in Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad.
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