Bhopal: Malegaon blast accused and Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur has gone lacking from the Bharatiya Janata Get together’s marketing campaign in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.
A number of BJP leaders ThePrint spoke to claimed that it was a well-thought out choice of the celebration to maintain her out of the marketing campaign as she speaks “out of turn” and will create pointless controversies.
It has been an enormous fall for the firebrand Sadhvi whose candidature from Bhopal within the 2019 Lok Sabha election had triggered an issue. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had then defended her candidature, saying “one woman, that, too, a Sadhvi was humiliated in such a manner.” Her candidature was a symbolic reply to these individuals who labelled the Hindu civilisation as terrorist, the Prime Minister had informed a tv information channel in an interview.
Subsequently, Thakur went on to trounce Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh by 3.65 lakh votes in Bhopal.
Barely six months later in November 2019, she triggered an enormous political controversy when she known as Mahatma Gandhi’s killer Nathuram Godse a “patriot”. Such was the outrage over the comment made within the Lok Sabha that an embarrassed BJP dropped her from the parliamentary consultative committee on defence, simply eight days after she was nominated to the panel.
It has been a downslide for the Bhopal MP since then because the BJP sought to keep up a distance from her. “She was in Mumbai for some time in connection with the Malegaon bomb blast case. Due to this, she was not able to campaign in the elections. She has returned to Bhopal now, but the campaigning is almost over now,” one among her shut aides stated, including that she has not been protecting nicely.
In accordance with a senior BJP functionary, some celebration candidates, together with these from Bhopal, had requested the celebration management that they’ll marketing campaign of their constituencies with out Thakur who represents the Lok Sabha seat. “She’s unpredictable and her speeches can actually change the political equations. It is because of this that her name was not even included in the star campaigners,” the functionary conceded.
One other BJP chief stated that in one of many conferences held for finalising star campaigners record it was felt that it might not be acceptable to incorporate Thakur within the record as she is going to entice pointless consideration. “This is not the first time, her name was not included in the star campaign list during the Jhabua bypoll too,” the senior chief stated.
The ruling BJP downplayed Thakur’s absence from the ballot marketing campaign. “All leaders are busy campaigning. If they are not there, it could be because of some personal commitments. The party has utilised all leaders in these five elections,” BJP state spokesperson Hitesh Bajpai stated.
“She speaks out of turn and despite being told to tone down, she doesn’t listen and has been making such comments continuously. Her comments are the reason behind her being kept out of the list. Also, she doesn’t treat party workers well. (She) always demands VIP treatment and comes late to the programmes, too. The way she has been behaving, she might not be fielded again from Bhopal as well,” a BJP state functionary informed ThePrint.
In April 2019, Thakur had drawn a lot ire for her comment that the dying of Hemant Karkare, the Maharashtra ATS chief killed within the 26/11 Mumbai terror assault, was due to a “curse” that she had invoked after he “tortured” her throughout the Malegaon investigation.
The sadhvi had later issued apologies for the Godse and Karkare remarks.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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