BJP suspends party leader in MP for FB rant about corruption

Mr chief minister, corruption is at its peak in the state. Condition of hospitals is intolerable. Please improve this or sack lakhs of party workers like us...

The Madhya Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has suspended Raj Chaddha, a leaders from Gwalior, from the party on Sunday and issued a show cause notice for his Facebook post alleging corruption in the party.

State BJP chief Nandkumar Singh Chauhan issued the suspension order after Chaddha’s recent post on Facebook which dragged chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan into the row. Chaddha was a former district BJP president in Gwalior and also president of Gwalior Vyapam Mela Authority.

“Mr chief minister, corruption is at its peak in the state. Condition of hospitals is intolerable. Please improve this or sack lakhs of party workers like us who sacrificed everything to fulfill the dream of Pt Deendayal Upadhyay,” he wrote.

Infuriated by the post, the BJP hit back with a suspension and a show cause notice. But Chaddha seems unfazed.

“O God! Save my party. It is beholding in high esteem those who are working against it and showing its door to those who sacrifice for it”, Chaddha wrote on his Facebook page on Monday following the show cause notice.

BJP spokesperson in Madhya Pradesh Rajneesh Agrawal told HT that none of the party workers and leaders were above the party. Hence, the party’s action against the leader was justified.

The row comes barely a fortnight ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s likely visit to Amarkantak to declare the conclusion of the Narmada Seva Yatra started by CM Chouhan.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday questioned Chattar Singh, a UPSC member and the then principal secretary to the former chief minister of Haryana, Bhupinder Singh Hooda in connection to an alleged graft case.

Officials said Singh was examined in connection to its probe into alleged irregularities in the allocation of industrial plots in Panchkula in which former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is also named as an accused.

Singh, a former IAS officer of the 1980-batch, was additional principal secretary to the chief minister between 2009 and 2013.The case relates to industrial plots that were given to 14 people by allegedly manipulating certain provisions of allotment, which included allowing them to submit their applications even after the last date of submission ended.

The FIR also alleged that plots were allotted at rates lesser than the prevailing market rates.