"The opportunity to seek votes for BJP has been denied in Nilgiris due to the irresponsibile trait of its nominee there," he said in a statement here referring to the rejection of the nomination of party candidate S Gurumurthy.
Stating that there was no other candidate who faced as much graft charges like Raja, he appealed to the people to vote for AIADMK to teach a fitting lesson to those who were corrupt. "There is no other way out but to support the AIADMK."
Following this, a panel was set up by the BJP headed by its former state chief K N Lakshmanan to go into the issue. Deposing before the panel, Gurumurthy owned up responsibility for the rejection of papers and blamed himself for negligence.