BJP to stage protest march against Sushilkumar Shinde today

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.

Referring to the Home Minister, Goel said, "The person with such polluted mindset is not fit to occupy the post held once by Sardar Patel. The statement of Shinde was made under a well considered conspiracy of the Congress. This statement was made to deliberately cover up scams, corruption, price rise and failures of the government on every front so that the attention of the people may be diverted and the Congress may get some more time. The Congress will be routed in the forthcoming Delhi Legislative Assembly and Lok Sabha elections."

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