BJP to discuss warrant against Uma

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary board will meet on Monday to consider whether Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti can continue in the post in the wake of reported issuance of a non-bailable warrant against her by a Hubli court.

The non-bailable warrant has been issued for the third time since the chargesheet was filed in 1995. Charges against Bharti range from attempt to murder setting fire, assaulting a public servant and rioting. Bharti will have to appear before the judicial magistrate in Hubli on September 19.

"BJP chief M Venkaiah Naidu has convened a meeting to discuss all aspects of the case related to hoisting of the national flag at the Idgah grounds in Hubli in Karnataka," parliamentary party spokesperson Sushma Swaraj said.

The incident, which led to the charge-sheet, was an Independence day programme in Hubli, which subsequently led to violence claiming four lives in the firing.

Earlier in the day, Parliament was adjourned as the treasury benches demanded Bharti's resignation from the post of chief minister. They accused the BJP of double standards, when it came to targeting ministers in the United Progressive Alliance government over pending court cases and warrants.

Asked whether the party could ask Bharti to step down, Swaraj said: "She (Uma) has conveyed to the party her willingness to accept any decision the party takes in this regard."

Swaraj, however, said there was "no similarity" between the cases against "tainted ministers" and the Madhya Pradesh chief minister.

"All the cases against her are related to hoisting of the national flag. But despite that, keeping in view the moral gro-unds, we have convened a meeting of the parliamentary board to discuss the issue," she said.

Swaraj also said it was a Congress government in Karnataka and "not that of the BJP or its allies" which had decided to withdraw the cases after the peaceful resolution of the issue.

In 2002, when Bharti was a Union minister, she had received a notice and she spoke to then Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna who assured her that he would personally look into it, she said.

Thereafter, the state government withdrew all the cases and appealed to the judicial magistrate of Hubli to do so. However, the judge stated that only the sessions court was empowered to withdraw the case and consequently the government moved a revision petition, which had been pending till now, she said.

"Because we had taken up the issue of tainted ministers, the Congress government in Karnataka appealed for withdrawal of its petition," Swaraj said.