New Delhi/Patna, Dec. 14: The BJP today repeatedly flagged a sting operation on low-level functionaries of the Congress, BSP, Samajwadi Party and NCP purportedly offering to exchange banned notes for a price, but chose to go soft on a Janata Dal United Delhi unit associate caught on the take in exactly the same manner.
Using the sting carried out by a television channel as proof of "note jugaad" (note business) by some of the parties at the forefront of the protests in Parliament, two senior ministers - Ananth Kumar and Prakash Javadekar - at separate news conferences appeared to forget the JDU while listing those involved.
Both were reminded by journalists that the same sting operation they were citing had also caught on camera a JDU functionary - Satish Saini - offering to exchange the banned notes for a price. Kumar dismissed it with a wave of his hand. Neither did he take the JDU's name throughout his on-record media interaction while mentioning the others repeatedly in the context of the sting operation. Javadekar did name the JDU once, but only because he was prodded.
The JDU itself has disowned Saini and has threatened legal action against the TV channel for describing him as a "JDU leader".
"Our national party president has dissolved JDU's Delhi unit. Currently Raj Singh Mann is the convener of the party's Delhi unit and is not the state president. Saini was an office-bearer in the previous set-up. I do not deny the association of Saini with the party but currently he is neither an office-bearer nor even a member of the party since we have not launched a membership drive. We have sent a notice to the TV channel asking them to contradict or prove that Saini is an office-bearer of the JDU," said K.C. Tyagi, the principal general secretary of the JDU.
The TV channel described Saini as the "vice-president" of the JDU's Delhi unit. Saini was shown purportedly offering to exchange banned notes of Rs 10 crore into legal tender for a 30 per cent commission.
This indulgent attitude of BJP ministers towards the JDU comes at a time when speculation is already rife of the two parties cosying up to each other after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's whole-hearted support for demonetisation. Another school of thought is that Nitish - by supporting the move - was only trying to ensure that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not usurp the high moral ground on black money.
Of late though, Nitish too has begun taking pot-shots at the Centre for being "unprepared" for implementing such a momentous decision. Nitish had previously defied his alliance partners RJD and Congress in extending support to demonetisation, stressing that it would help the economy of the country in the long run. However, Nitish virtually became isolated in the Opposition camp. Within his party also, Rajya Sabha member Sharad Yadav was seen standing with Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the Congress in their protest against demonetisation.
Nitish has dismissed the speculative analyses; pointing out that this is not the first time he has swam against the flow of an alliance he is a part of. As Bihar chief minister with BJP support when the UPA was in power at the Centre, he had spoken up for GST though the NDA was opposed to it back then.
