BJP peeved being left out of '1857' celebrations

New Delhi, May 7: Taking strong exception to the leaving out BJP, the main Opposition party in Parliament, from the celebrations marking the 150th year of the 1857 freedom struggle, the party today said Human Resources Minister Arjun Singh could not treat this issue as a 'family affair'.

''We don't know if Mr Singh has lost his mental balance, when he justified his decision to keep BJP away from the celebrations on the pretext that the party was not part of the freedom struggle'', BJP Parliamentary Party Spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said, adding this was ''shocking and atrocious'' on the part of Mr Singh who had chosen to leave out BJP in an attempt to ''project himself as an anti-BJP leader.''

Nothing that only former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been invited and that too in his capacity as Chairman of NDA and not as BJP leader, he said Mr Vajpayee been invited because the Alliance has a few parties which had taken part in the freedom struggle. Prof Malhotra however evaded a direct answer to a question if Mr Vajpayee will take part in the official celebrations.

Mr Malhotra said that the 1857 struggle was one of the many struggles launched against the 'invaders' for over 1000 years be it by Rana Pratap, Shivaji, Tantya Tope or Maharaja Ranjit Singh ''For the Congress party, which had a 'foreigner' as its first President and was now also being headed by another foreigner the contributions and sacrifices of Mangal Pande, Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and Netaji Subhas Chandra Azad are all insignificant, he remarked. He also referred to a reply of the Home Ministry which had given a written reply that it had no records about Netaji's contributions to the freedom struggle.

Mr Malhotra reiterated the BJP did not require any certificate from Mr Arjun Singh and the BJP strongly condemned his attitude.

UNI

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