New Delhi: BJP MP Ram Jethmalani, who has been suspended from the party, on Tuesday criticised party president Nitin Gadkari and lashed out at senior leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley for opposing the appointment of new CBI Director.
Gadkari had on Sunday suspended the noted Supreme Court lawyer for ‘anti-party activities and indiscipline’.
The BJP Parliamentary Board yesterday confirmed Mr Gadkari’s decision and issued a showcause notice to Mr Jethmalani asking him to explain within 10 days why he should not be expelled from the party for a period of six years.
“Your order of suspension is ultra vires and usurpation of the power of the Parliamentary Board. Besides, no situation had arisen in which you should have proceeded without speaking to me and complying with ordinary decencies of a quasi-judicial office which you hold,” Mr Jethmalani said in a letter dated November 26.
He alleged that Mr Gadkari, who has been facing allegations, would bring the party down.
The Rajya Sabha MP had openly asked Mr Gadkari to quit the party’s president post and not to seek a second term in office in the wake of allegations against him.
The noted lawyer had also claimed that senior party leaders Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and actor-turned-MP Shatrughan Sinha were also supporting him on the issue.
Mr Jethmalani further accused Ms Swaraj and Mr Jaitley of not consulting him on the Lokpal issue.
“Though I am a senior member of the Rajya Sabha and a founder of the BJP, your present leaders either in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha have never once discussed with me anything about the LokPal Bill,” he said in the letter.
He also criticised both the leaders for raising objections on the appointment of Ranjit Sinha as the new CBI chief. “I have not received the showcause notice yet. I am a busy leader, busy MP, busy professor and busy writer. Ten days are not enough to reply. Time should be up to end of December,” he told reporters. (UNI)