Date:10/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/10/stories/2008091053640400.htm

New Delhi

Bidhuri resigns from NCP posts

Staff Reporter

Hints at joining Congress party to prevent division of secular votes

Photo: Anu Pushkarna

Quitting again: Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, flanked by NCP Councillors Mahesh Awana and Mamta Sharma, in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: Three-time Delhi Assembly member Ramvir Singh Bidhuri resigned from the post of president of the Delhi Nationalist Congress Party and from the membership of the NCP Working Committee on Tuesday stating that he saw no merit in dividing the secular votes in the coming elections “at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party was vitiating the atmosphere in the country through its communal politics”.

While Mr. Bidhuri has sent out his resignation from the posts to the party’s national president Sharad Pawar, both the party Councillors in Delhi, Mahesh Awana and Mamta Sharma, have tendered their resignations from the primary membership of the party.

On what prompted him to take the decision, the 56-year-old Gujjar leader said he realised that fielding of candidates by the NCP in and around Delhi was leading to a division of secular votes and helping the BJP. “This is not acceptable to me as the BJP Government in Rajasthan has killed a large number of Gujjars. While a large number of people were felled by police bullets, many people are still languishing in the jails of Rajasthan,” he charged.

Alleging that the BJP Government in the State had also not kept its word on providing Scheduled Tribe status to Gujjars and releasing the detainees, he said the party had attacked Muslim Gujjars in Jammu during the recent Amarnath protests there. Describing the Gujjars of Jammu and Kashmir as patriotic people who had always stood by the Army in times of intrusions or conflict and never endorsed terrorism, he said it was unfortunate that BJP workers from all over the country who had gone to Jammu had targeted the properties of these innocent people, he said.

Mr. Bidhuri, who began his political career with the Congress in 1967, indicated that he might go back to the party when he chose to laud the work done by both the United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre and the Sheila Dikshit Government in Delhi. However, Mr. Bidhuri said he would consult his workers before making any formal announcement.

“Both these governments have worked hard for the welfare of the people in resolving several long-pending demands pertaining to regularisation of unauthorised colonies, extending the abadi area of the villages, constructing flats for jhuggi-jhonpri dwellers, protecting small shopkeepers, allowing extra floors on buildings, and giving ownership rights to resettlement colonies,” said Mr. Bidhuri. He was a close aide of Indira Gandhi from 1977 to 1980 before parting ways with the Congress. From 1990 to 1996 he was national general secretary of the Janata Dal, from 1996 to 1997 he was convenor of the Congress Central Election Campaign Committee, and in 1998 he was national general secretary of BSP for six months.