BJP expels 4 rebel candidates
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Nov 14 — The Bharatiya Janata Party today expelled four rebel candidates, including two sitting MLAs, after they failed to retire from contest for the November 25 Delhi assembly poll.

The party issued a warning that it would take stern action against those who supported the rebel candidates during campaigning, the president of the Delhi unit of the BJP, Mr Mange Ram Garg, said here today.

The expelled candidates were Mr Jagdish Lal Batra and Mr Inder Raj Singh, both sitting MLAs, and Mr Suresh Gupta and Mr Ravinder Gupta, two mandal presidents. The rebels have been expelled from the party for six years.

Meanwhile, cinestar and Rajya Sabha MP from Gurdaspur Vinod Khanna addressed at least six meetings in the Capital today to seek support for the BJP.

Mr Khanna said during his three-day stay here, he would try to "cover as many assembly constituencies as possible".

Claiming to have earned the reputation of "somebody who has seriously stepped into the political world", Mr Khanna said the civic infrastructure in Delhi spoke volumes of Congress "inaction".

"What has the Congress been doing all these years?," he asked.

He said allegations of corruption against the Congress would go against the party. He said the BJP had inherited a legacy of administration corrupted by the Congress.

Meanwhile, the party’s election campaign committee chairman, Mr Vijay Kumar Malhotra, claimed that pre-poll surveys which predicted a swing in favour of the Congress were incorrect and the BJP was sure to improve its tally of 1993 when the party had won 49 of the 70 seats.

Meanwhile, the Delhi unit of the Congress is making hectic preparations for party president Sonia Gandhi’s rally in the Capital tomorrow. The spokesman of the party Delhi unit, Mr Jag Pravesh Chandra, said 10 candidates would be present on the occasion.

The youth wing of the party had been asked to mobilise people and party workers to highlight "mismanagement of the affairs of Delhi" by the BJP during its five-year rule.

The leader of the Opposition in the Delhi assembly said the spiralling prices of onion and other essential commodities were due to the "administrative" failure of the BJP.