Mumbai, Apr 25 (PTI) A day after seven Rajya Sabha MPs of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) quit and said they were merging with the BJP, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Saturday likened the saffron party to the mythological demon Bakasur with insatiable hunger.
Talking to reporters here, Raut said the majority of AAP MPs who switched their loyalties to the Bharatiya Janata Party were “Page 3 leaders”, and claimed that they were scared as they were “wealthy and needed protection.” “Let the garbage from other parties go the BJP so that it becomes a dumping ground,” Raut said.
The AAP suffered a jolt on Friday as seven out of its 10 Rajya Sabha members, including Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal and Sandeep Pathak, quit the party, with Chadha saying all of them had merged with the BJP.
“In Mahabharat, there is a demon called Bakasur whose hunger was insatiable. The BJP has become a party of Bakasur. It can eat anything,” Raut said.
Chadha had once termed the BJP a party of goons, while Mittal’s businesses faced raids soon after he was made deputy leader of the AAP in the Rajya Sabha (replacing Chadha), said Raut, himself a member of the Upper House of Parliament.
The Enforcement Directorate had last week conducted raids at business entities linked to Mittal in Punjab as part of a FEMA probe.
“Everyone knows about the BJP’s politics. It is shamelessness,” the Sena (UBT) leader said, adding that US President Donald Trump called India a hellhole and the BJP was showing what hell looks like.
He himself had written to then Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu that there was pressure on him to join the BJP but he did not betray his party and preferred to go to jail, Raut said, referring to his arrest in an alleged money laundering case in 2022. He was released on bail in the case months later. PTI PR KRK
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