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Journalism of Courage
Not in a mood to spare the BJP high command for sitting on the issue of a leadership change in Gujarat, Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s predecessor and rival Keshubhai Patel has stayed away from the party meeting in Mumbai and hit out at Modi, saying there’s ‘‘a mini-Emergency like situation prevailing in Gujarat where people are living in an atmosphere of terror.’’
A member of the BJP national executive, Keshubhai said he was unable to attend the meeting because of ‘‘pain in the knees’’.
When other reporters went to him, he declined to meet them but agreed to respond through a speakerphone. Asked to spell out his ‘‘mini-Emergency’’ remark, his reply was a near repeat: ‘‘BJP MLAs are constantly living in fear. They’ve not been able to air their grievances before their own party leaders. I’m really annoyed that the voice of elected representatives is not being heard by their own government.’’
Keshubhai also said that people had been receiving some ‘‘obscene and nasty’’ SMS messages for the last four-five days, ridiculing former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
‘‘Even my daughter-in-law has received a couple of SMS on her mobile. They are really vulgar. I will draw the attention of party president Venkaiah Naidu to this,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t believe the government is unaware of this. I don’t know whether the government is inquiring into this.’’
He said the SMSs were derogatory and spoke of ‘‘throwing Vajpayee out of the BJP and India… this has not only hurt my feelings, but brought a bad name to Gujarat.’’
(The state chief secretary has asked the DGP to probe and trace the source of the messages).
Keshubhai declined comment on the BJP central parliamentary board meeting at the end of which Naidu announced that there was no move for a leadership change in Gujarat at this stage.
‘‘I’ll comment on the issue in the next couple of days,’’ Keshubhai said, indicating that there was more to follow.
