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Ex-Delhi CM Madan Lal Khurana resigns from BJP
New Delhi | April 20, 2006 2:27:04 PM IST
Former Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana today resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was suspended from the party on March 19 for joining expelled party leader Uma Bharati's 'Janadesh Rally' (on March 21). "I have sent my resignation, addressed to the BJP Chief Rajnath Singh," Khurana said. Khurana alleged, "BJP leadership is running the party like a private limited company with no regard whatsoever for mass leaders. I resigned because I have been feeling severely uncomfortable in such an environment." The copies of the resignation letter have been sent to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leaders K S Sudarshan and Mohan Bhagawat and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal, he said. Khurana also said that he might launch a "third front" in Delhi or join Bharati's party which she is to announce shortly. He also criticised BJP leader L. K. Advani over his recent remarks on Kandahar. Advani had reportedly said that he differed with the National Democratic Alliance Government's decision in 1999 to release three terrorists in exchange for Indian Airlines passengers held hostage by hijackers in Kandahar. On April 17, he had said that he could not work in the party till L K Advani was associated with it. He termed the act as "anti-national" by the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to take three terrorists to Kandahar and said he would "reveal" certain things about the incident soon. After meeting Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy, esterday, Khurana said that the Centre would bring in egislation to stop Municipal Corporation of Delhi demolition drives in the Capital, if its request to the Supreme Court for a six-month halt on the demolitions is turned down. Khurana before being suspended had demanded for key position in the party. He was angry for not being nominated by BJP to Rajya Sabha polls. He castigated the party, particularly Advani, for taking no action and not heeding to the plight of the Delhiites. orn on October 15, 1936, in the West Punjab, Khurana was barely 12 when the family was forced to migrate to Delhi because of the Partition and began to rebuild his family and his life at a refugee colony in West Delhi. As a youth, Khurana took up teaching as a profession along with another BJP stalwart Vijay Kumar Malhotra at an evening college before deciding to enter politics. Khurana, Malhotra, Kedar Nath Sahni and Kanwar Lal Gupta founded the Delhi chapter of the Jan Sangh, the forerunner of the BJP. Khurana was the Jan Sangh's general secretary from 1965 to 1967. He was the Chief Minister of Delhi in 1993. Khurana has seen many ups and downs in his political career. He was forced to resign as chief minister after his name figured in a list of politicians allegedly involved in a hawala scandal in 1995. He resigned in 1996. At that time, the BJP brass eased Khurana out, promising to reinstall him as chief minister if his name was cleared. After the Supreme Court refused, in 1998, to admit scribbling in a diary as evidence, Khurana staked his claim for the chief ministership again. But his successor, Sahib Singh Verma, refused to vacate the chair and the party unit teetered on the verge of a split with the assembly election at hand. A compromise was worked out when the BJP leadership got Khurana to accept the posts of Union Minister for Tourism and Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and installed Sushma Swaraj as chief minister with less than two months to go for the Delhi Assembly election. Swaraj, however, was unable to prevent the BJP from suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Congress party. The result was a big setback for the BJP, which had dominated Delhi politics for a long time, but it helped Khurana bounce back as the party's primary leader in the capital. His failed attempt to unseat the Congress from Delhi in 2003 saw the then BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) taking a firm decision to formally ease him out of Delhi politics and appoint him as the Governor of Rajasthan. At the time, he told reporters that he was a loyal soldier of the BJP and would do whatever the party asked him to. But within months of occupying the Governor's mansion at Jaipur, Khurana began sending feelers to the party brass to let him return to active politics in the Indian capital, a demand that was eventually acceded to albeit with a great deal of reluctance after the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power at the Centre in May 2004. On August 20, 2005, Khurana was removed from the BJP for indiscipline for publicly criticising the then BJP president Advani and expressing inability and discomfort at serving with him. On September 12, 2005, he was taken back to the party and given back his responsibilities after he apologized about his remarks about the party's leadership. (ANI)
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