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Shanti Bhushan wanted to haul Rajiv
legally,
but BJP man tripped
WSN Network
New Delhi: A
former Indian federal minister has blamed BJP leader Vijay Kumar
Malhotra for ensuring that a petition seeking the disqualification
of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for allegedly "communalising" the
1984 election fell through.
"To this day, I
do not know why he (Malhotra) ignored my advice and had the petition
dismissed for default," former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan said in
his memoirs 'Courting Destiny'.
Noting that
Congress speeches had been "incendiary" in their reference to the
assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, Bhushan said
that the BJP had decided to file just one petition against Gandhi.
He had made several speeches during election along the same lines.
The election
petition was drafted by Bhushan for Malhotra's constituency in
Delhi,
where he had lost the poll to Lalit Maken. The petitioners were two
electors of the constituency in which Gandhi had made several
speeches in Maken's support.
When asked to
comment on the claims of Bhushan, Malhotra said after the death of
Maken, "his (Maken's) family members and others told me that it
would not be dignified to press with the petition against a dead
person".
BJP's Chief
Ministerial candidate for
Delhi polls said
the petition was not against Rajiv Gandhi's disqualification.
Eighty-three-year-old Bhushan, who was at that time in BJP and a
member of its national executive, said that earlier the saffron
party debated whether all Congress MPs in the Lok Sabha should be
challenged on this ground.
26 November
2008
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