EC letter to President adds to BJP ammunition

The BJP has reasons to be pleased with Union Law Minister Salman Khursheed for providing fodder to its poll campaign in Uttar Pradesh.

For several weeks now, the party has been deriving maximum advantage of the controversial statements he made. Ironically, it is the Law Minister who has shaped some of the key campaign themes of the BJP.

He first triggered a controversy with a statement on the Congress intent to provide nine per cent reservation to minorities from within the 27 per cent quota for the OBCs.

Then came his remark that the government was on the verge of ordering a judicial enquiry into the 2008 Batla House encounter in New Delhi. The BJP seized it as yet another instance of the Congress ‘communalising' the campaign and demanded an explanation from the government and Congress president Sonia Gandhi on whether they concurred with the Law Minister's view.

Stepping up the attack on him in the wake of the Election Commission seeking the President's ‘immediate and decisive intervention' in the case of Mr. Khursheed for repeatedly violating the model code in U.P., the BJP on Monday demanded that the Prime Minister sack him without delay as he was still unrepentant.

“Practically, even after a week Salman Khursheed is unrepentant and is actually defiant. This is an example of vote-bank politics, communal politics, corrupt politics that denigrate all constitutional authority,” said BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar.