Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 7 (IANS) Amid the deepening divide within the Bharatiya Janata Party over his induction, Babu Singh Kushwaha, a former Bahujan Samaj Party leader, has written to party president Nitin Gadkari asking him to put his membership on hold till he is proved innocent of the corruption allegations levelled against him.

Kushwaha’s letter to Gadkari will come as a face-saver to the BJP president, who was becoming increasingly isolated in the party over the decision to induct a tainted former BSP leader ahead of the elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Even as Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, taunted the BJP for inducting the “corrupt” former BSP minister, the besieged BJP welcomed Kushwaha’s offer of temporary suspension from the party membership, saying he will be neither given a party ticket to contest the polls nor any position in the party.

“Till the time, the allegations against me are proved, I will keep the BJP membership on hold,” Kushwaha said in a letter, written in Hindi, to Gadkari.

“I am confident of my innocence,” he said.

“I am ready for probe by any agency and I have not been charged by any court of law. I don’t have a criminal history,” said Kushwaha, a former family welfare minister in the Mayawati government.

Reacting to Kushwaha’s offer, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “Let the charges against him be investigated. We have made it clear that he will neither be given a party ticket nor any position in the party.”

In his letter, Kushwaha has said that he doesn’t want the party to suffer due to an unnecessary controversy triggered by his induction. He also charged that the Congress was targeting him due to his opposition to 4.5 per cent quota for minority within other backward class or OBC quota.

Kushwaha accused the Mayatati government of hatching “a political conspiracy” along with the Congress-led central government by using the Central Bureau of Investigation to target and torture him.

Kushwaha claimed in the letter that it was a calculated conspiracy to grab the minorities’ vote bank in the state.

Kushwaha is a prominent other backward classes (OBC) leader in Uttar Pradesh and was once a trusted lieutenant of BSP supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. He was sacked from the post of family welfare minister in April last year following his alleged involvement in a multi-crore-rupee rural health scam.

A day after Kushwaha was inducted in the BJP, the CBI had raided his premises in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi.

The raids caused a major embarrassment to the BJP.

Kushwaha’s induction into the BJP has triggered a major controversy, with the Congress party seizing on the issue to expose the BJP’s claims of rooting out corruption.

The induction has also divided the party with many senior leaders like L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj fiercely opposing the move.