Varun Gandhi

The two-time MP said there is “not one grain of truth or shred of evidence” against him and it was unethical to publicly air damaging accusation without being “scrutinised, verified and clarified”.

Gandhi said he never attended a single meeting of the defence consultative committee and had been to very few of the standing committee sittings. Had there been any hidden agenda or motive, he argued, it would have reflected in his attendance.

“…there is never ‘confidential or top secret’ information accessible to such parliamentary panels,” he added. “As a first-time MP of the opposition party, I could not have had any access to any confidential information, far from leaking it”.

He dismissed as “ludicrous” the charge of being blackmailed by Verma and said he did no wrong. Gandhi claimed he never met Allen and it has been many years since he last met Verma, whom he first met while studying in England.

“At no point did we ever discussed work, neither his nor mine,” Gandhi said, adding it appeared that Allen was seeking maximum publicity to his charges against Verma by naming public figures like him. “I have needlessly been sought to be embroiled into a controversy in which I have no part,” he said. meeting held on Saturday also passed a resolution that no mercy should be shown to those who flouted party discipline.

Udaiveer Singh, a member of the legislative council, was expelled for six years after he wrote a letter to Mulayam asking him step down as SP president to make way for Akhilesh.

“I stand by the letter, won’t apologise, don’t regret and I am with chief minister Akhilesh Yadav,” Singh said after he was expelled.

Singh also alleged in the letter Shivpal was acting as the political front of the chief minister’s stepmother, a view said to be shared by a section in the party.

The crisis in the party was sparked by the appointment of Shivpal as state president replacing Akhilesh.Akhilesh had retaliated by stripping Shivpal of key ministerial portfolios and dropping two ministers accused of corruption.

The power struggle intensified after Shivpal expelled the youth leaders and went ahead with merging a party floated by a jailed gangster with SP despite Akhilesh’s objections.

Though Mulayam managed to broker an uneasy truce,