Jethmalani gatecrashes BJP panel meeting

The BJP parliamentary party was in for a surprise at Tuesday’s meeting as suspended MP Ram Jethmalani gatecrashed into the closed-door gathering charging that the principal Opposition party was not attacking the ruling UPA with all its might in Parliament.

The senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha member also jibed that the laid-back BJP is also not able to decide his suspension.

The parliamentary party met to decide the floor strategy to counter the UPA’s move to push through the gamechanger food security bill in both Houses of Parliament.

 As BJP top leaders, including L K Advani, leaders of opposition in the two Houses Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley along with MPs, assembled in Parliament Annex before the session began, Jethmalani stormed in and spoke extempore for more than five minutes questioning the party’s soft stand towards the UPA.

Party sources present in the meeting said the accused the BJP of not going all out to expose the corrupt Congress-led UPA government. He also questioned the BJP’s silence on the black money issue.

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar confirmed that Jethmalani made offensive remarks, which left some MPs furious. When asked why the BJP has not taken any action against him, Javadekar said, “Action will be taken at an appropriate time. Also, the party has six months time to initiate punitive action”.

Jethmalani was suspended on November 25 last year, after he had soug–ior Supreme Court lawyer managed to get inside the meeting venue when he is under suspension.

The agitated MPs said the Rajya Sabha MP should be thrown out of the party as such rowdy behaviour should not be tolerated.But some others were of the view that he should be left in a limbo. If he was removed from the party, he would keep on making noises against the BJP.

Later, another round of confabulations took place in Advani’s room allotted in the Parliament complex, which was attended by top leaders, including party president Rajnath Singh, Swaraj and Jaitley.