BJP parliamentary party chairman L K Advani on Wednesday lauded party president Nitin Gadkari’s willingness to face a probe into allegations of dubious funding in his company. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj too came out in support of her party president.
The RSS leadership, meanwhile, described the issue as “an internal matter” of the BJP. Gadkari, who is all set to take charge as BJP president for a second term may heave a sigh of relief with the day’s developments.
“On certain media allegations questioning investments in business enterprises, Nitinji has come clean, asking for an inquiry by the Department of Company Affairs. It is a fair and proper response. This shows the difference in the BJP’s attitude. It needs to be noted that the allegations (against Gadkari) are about standards of business and not misuse of power or corruption,” Advani said in a statement. “I hope the government inquiry will be fair and the government will not use its political hostility to colour the inquiry,” he added.
In his one-page statement, Advani also said the “UPA was trying to work a strategy to paint the entire political class with the same brush to minimise and escape its unpardonable sins”.
“An offshoot of this is allegations against Nitin Gadkari. This is more to neutralise the unprecedented charges against the ruling UPA,” he added.
Advani also said that “the BJP should be different and should not claim immunity of either scale or nature of the allegations”.
Extending her support to the BJP president, Sushma Swaraj tweeted, “It is unjust and unfair to accept these allegations as true without a probe. We the members of BJP trust our president and stand firmly behind him”.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who devoted a major part of his customary Vijayadasami speech in Nagpur to the anti-corruption drive, refused to comment on the allegations against Gadkari and said, “it was an internal matter of the party”.