BJP to stage protest march against Sushilkumar Shinde today

On the eve of the Budget session, the BJP will organise a protest march against Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde's Hindu terror remarks where he had alleged the BJP and RSS were running terror training camps.

BJP's top brass, led by party president Rajnath Singh along with senior leaders Arun Jaitley, Murli Manohar Joshi and Venkaiah Naidu, are slated to lead the protest march here on Wednesday. The pradesh unit, led by newly appointed Delhi president Vijay Goel, will join the protests at the Jantar Mantar.

The party had earlier announced it would organise a gherao of PM Manmohan Singh's residence on the issue. While the BJP will start its protest march near Parliament Street, during the meeting suggestions were learnt to have been made to take the march to Shinde's residence, but the party decided to stick to its earlier announcement.

The executive committee meeting of BJP's parliamentary party, chaired by L K Advani, on Tuesday decided that party MPs will also protest in Parliament against Shinde's comments asking him to retract his statements and tender an unconditional apology.

"The BJP has taken a serious view of the remarks made by Shinde. We have demanded that he should apologise...The details of how we will go about our protest in Parliament is a question of strategy which cannot be divulged. But our demand is emphatic. Shinde is not just a Home Minister, he is also Leader of the Lok Sabha," BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters. The BJP will discuss floor strategy pertaining to the issue with its partners on Wednesday.

According to sources, presidents at every level of the organisation have been asked to bring in 'crowd'. "We have been asked to bring at least two buses from our mandal," said one of the mandal presidents in Delhi. All BJP legislators, municipal councilors, district, mandal presidents, senior leaders and workers have been 'ordered' to participate.

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