BJP’s elders meet, talk Kirti Azad over tea

He said BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had offered to help him draft the reply to the notice.

Jaitley, a confidant of Modi, headed the Delhi and District Cricket Association for 13 years until 2013.

This happened a day after party veterans L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha, now in the party’s Margdarshak Mandal – which many see as a sign of their having been sidelined – took stock of the situation.

BJP punished Azad for his alleged anti-party activities and for colluding with the Congress and AAP to embarrass his party.

The party elders met after Azad called on them to come forward and look into the issue at a press conference in the morning on Thursday.

Underlining himself as a “loyal soldier of BJP since 1993”, suspended BJP MP Kirti Azad on Friday shot off a letter to party president Amit Shah requesting “proofs” of his anti-party activities so that he can clear those allegations against himself.

But sources privy to the discussions said the BJP quartet felt that Azad’s suspension was wrong in principle as the cricketer-turned-politician had for years been campaigning against financial wrongdoings in the Delhi and District Cricket Association.

Azad, suspended for “anti-party activities”, sought help from the party’s “Marg Darshak Mandal” which comprises of Advani, Joshi, the now ailing former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Hence, the mood at Thursday’s meeting was more one of resignation, that anything they might say was unlikely to have an impact. He said he’d also assist Azad in drafting the reply to the suspension letter, adding Azad was still a party member. “I believe that the party has nothing to do with this matter and (it) is (totally) out of its purview”, he said.

“I met him (Prime Minister Modi) in Ahmedabad in 1995 or 1996 during the elections”.

Speaking to reporters, he stated he would file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in his private capability on the DDCA problem, and warned that folks “can be in hassle”.

A defiant Azad has maintained that his fight was only against alleged corruption in the DDCA and not against any individual.

“Kirti’s issues are 1-is cricket affair within the purview of party discipline and 2-due to SC case on BCCI, is party decision amenable in court”, Swamy tweeted.