Uma fires broadside at Vajpayee, Advani

Bhopal, Mar 2 (UNI) Training guns at former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and senior BJP leader L K Advani, Bharatiya Jan Shakti (BJS) Founder-President Uma Bharti has alleged that the top brass of the party in the grip of power-hungry people.

In a letter to BJP General Secretary Ramlal, the firebrand sadhvi said, ''The helplessness of Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani is understandable. But what has happened to you, Mr Ramlal? You renounced home for the sake of the 'Rashtra Parivar' (nation family). Why are you protecting these people who lack principles?'' Copies of the missive, roughly two-and-a-half-page-long, penned during the Uttarakhand election and chronologising Ms Bharti's life, from her days as a six-year-old preacher to the BJS founder were released to mediapersons during a news conference here today by BJS General Secretary and former Union minister Prahlad Patel.

''The people who lack principles, and are controlling the BJP, attacked me like a pack of wolves and nobody prevented them. The Maoists have an eye on Uttarakhand. Naxalism thrives where exploitation, corruption and disappointed youth exist. BJP and Congress tenures in that state were disappointing periods,'' wrote the sanyasin, who was expelled from the BJP about two and a half year back.

Alleging that crores of Indians were cheated, Ms Bharti added that the sincere movement initiated by BJP ideologue Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya was losing out of frivolous acts of film stars, jokers and cricketers.

UNI