M A I N   N E W S

Uma spits fire on Mahajan, Jaitley
Swati Chaturvedi

New Delhi, December 10
Spitting fire at her opponents, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti said in an interview, “Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley cannot find ideology in goblets of wine”’.

In an exclusive interview to Janmat, the sanyasin, who was recently expelled from the BJP, ruled out forming a new political party saying, “I will live in the BJP or I will die in the BJP”.

She was vehemence personified when she said, “The present BJP is pseudo BJP while I am the real BJP”. She was obviously drawing upon the “pseudo secularism” slogan of yore, coined and popularised by Mr Lal Krishna Advani.

Making it clear that she was not going to compromise with her rivals, Ms Bharti, who is now around 200 kms away from Bhopal on her “Ram Roti Yatra”, dramatically pointed to the tiny tent pitched near the highway where she intended spending the night.

“I am not a lamb to be slaughtered by the likes of perverts like Mahajan and Jaitley”, she said. With blisters on her feet, Ms Bharti was all fire and brimstone.

“Advani and Vajpayee are mute spectators to the hijack of ideology. These people are jealous of me and they have led them astray”.

Asked if she was prone to tantrums, Ms Bharti gritted her teeth and said, “This is a baseless charge levelled by these perverts. Have I thrown tantrums with the media or the ordinary people? Yes, within closed doors I tell Advani and Swaraj and the others where I think the party has gone wrong. And this is promptly leaked out to the media by these rootless people who consider politics a business”.

Coming down hard on Mr Jaitley who recently said that she was not drawing crowds, Ms Bharti said that “he has a sick mentality and is jealous of me because I am a mass leader”. Asked if she was prepared to take on Mr Jaitley in an electoral contest, Ms Bharti said, “I am the real BJP, so if he contests on a BJP ticket, I will have to campaign to make sure that he wins”.

She said the BJP had led people down on all its core issues such as Mandir and the common civil code. “Advani should never have become president again. He lost credibility and respect of the ordinary worker. If I had not rebelled, I would have faced the same situation”, she added for greater effect.

She referred to the new Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Shivraj Singh Chauhan, as “that fellow appointed by Pramod”. This was her parting shot for her successor’s succcessor.

— The writer is an anchor with Janmat who regularly writes for the Tribune.