God given punishment for targetting Jaya: Uma Bharti

New Delhi, Mar 23: Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti today (Mar 23, 2006) said Congress President Sonia Gandhi resigning from her Lok Sabha membership and National Advisory Council's chair was a 'God given punishment' for her vengeful action against Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan.

Ms Bharti told UNI that Mrs Gandhi got entrapped into her own 'conspiracy' and ultimately had to quit the posts. ''She threw stone at the glass house without realising that she was also living in a glass house,'' she said.

Taking exception to a section of the media projecting her as a personification of sacrifice and sainthood, Ms Bharti, herself a sanyasin, said, ''I regard them as 'neo-Rai Bahadurs', the self serving supporters of British during Independence struggle, supressing and deriding indigenous talent''. They were willing to overlook the fact that she was on the doorsteps of Rashtrapati Bhavan staking claim to form the government with 'false and fictitious' support of 272 MPs in 1999.

Even two years ago she went to the President twice staking claim to form the Government. ''What transpired before she declined the Prime Minister's post was anybody's guess but the 'neo-Rai Bahadurs' are busy projecting her as an angel, she regretted.

Asked about the MPs occupying offices of profit like Mrs Gandhi, the former Chief Minister said she would want a tough law to root out corruption. The reports of Paul Volcker on oil-for-food scandal and Mitrokhin expose had all shown how corruption was taking place at the top level. There should be a law to tackle corruption irrespective of the fact if one is in office or not. ''We should strengthen Lok Pal institution and bring all corrupt to book,'' she said.

UNI