Bhopal: Malegaon blast accused and Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur has gone missing from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.
Multiple BJP leaders ThePrint spoke to claimed that it was a well-thought out decision of the party to keep her out of the campaign as she speaks “out of turn” and could create unnecessary controversies.
It has been a big fall for the firebrand Sadhvi whose candidature from Bhopal in the 2019 Lok Sabha election had triggered a controversy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had then defended her candidature, saying “one woman, that, too, a Sadhvi was humiliated in such a manner.” Her candidature was a symbolic answer to those people who labelled the Hindu civilisation as terrorist, the Prime Minister had told a television news channel in an interview.
Subsequently, Thakur went on to trounce Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh by 3.65 lakh votes in Bhopal.
Barely six months later in November 2019, she triggered a huge political controversy when she called Mahatma Gandhi’s killer Nathuram Godse a “patriot”. Such was the outrage over the remark made in the Lok Sabha that an embarrassed BJP dropped her from the parliamentary consultative committee on defence, just eight days after she was nominated to the panel.
It has been a downslide for the Bhopal MP since then as the BJP sought to maintain a distance from her. “She was in Mumbai for some time in connection with the Malegaon bomb blast case. Due to this, she was not able to campaign in the elections. She has returned to Bhopal now, but the campaigning is almost over now,” one of her close aides said, adding that she has not been keeping well.
According to a senior BJP functionary, some party candidates, including those from Bhopal, had requested the party leadership that they can campaign in their constituencies without Thakur who represents the Lok Sabha seat. “She’s unpredictable and her speeches can actually change the political equations. It is because of this that her name was not even included in the star campaigners,” the functionary conceded.
Another BJP leader said that during one of the meetings held for finalising star campaigners list it was felt that it would not be appropriate to include Thakur in the list as she will attract unnecessary attention. “This is not the first time, her name was not included in the star campaign list during the Jhabua bypoll too,” the senior leader said.
The ruling BJP downplayed Thakur’s absence from the poll campaign. “All leaders are busy campaigning. If they are not there, it could be because of some personal commitments. The party has utilised all leaders in these five elections,” BJP state spokesperson Hitesh Bajpai said.
“She speaks out of turn and despite being told to tone down, she doesn’t listen and has been making such comments continuously. Her comments are the reason behind her being kept out of the list. Also, she doesn’t treat party workers well. (She) always demands VIP treatment and comes late to the programmes, too. The way she has been behaving, she might not be fielded again from Bhopal as well,” a BJP state functionary told ThePrint.
In April 2019, Thakur had drawn much ire for her remark that the death of Hemant Karkare, the Maharashtra ATS chief killed in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, was because of a “curse” that she had invoked after he “tortured” her during the Malegaon investigation.
The sadhvi had later issued apologies for the Godse and Karkare remarks.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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