Former Karnataka gov Bharadwaj spills the beans on Reddy brothers; calls Sonia 'bechari'

Another Congress leader and a party loyalist has gone astray. Speaking to the media, former law minister and a senior party leader Hans Raj Bharadwaj said that a few senior Congress leaders did not want him to take action against the Reddy brothers and former Chief Minister of Karnataka BS Yeddyurappa.

“These leaders told me I should desist from taking action against Reddy brothers and Yeddyurappa.These Congress leaders were very chummy with the BJP brass,” Bharadwaj told The Times of India.

Bharadwaj issued orders to prosecute Yeddyurappa when he was the Governor of Karnataka under the Prevention of Corruption Act. At that time, BJP had accused Bharadwaj of being a Congress “agent.”

Bhardwaj told TOI that his “sense of duty” made him take action against the corrupt leaders and he couldn’t ignore “the flagrant violations brought to his notice by anticorruption crusaders.”

Zee News quoted the senior leader as saying, “People are not ready to listen any more. Congress won’t rise again. Congress is responsible.”

Speaking to The Times of India , Bharadwaj alleged rampant corruption in UPA-II which resulted in its unprecedented defeat in the General Elections of 2014. “The nation assessed UPA-II. India Against Corruption became the biggest movement after JP Andolan (of 1975),” he said, adding that the Congress should “introspect why it has gone down so badly.”

That’s not all. Bharadwaj was critical former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram too. According to PTI, Bharadwaj termed his then Cabinet colleague Chidambaram’s statement welcoming the Supreme Court judgement striking down Section 66A the IT law as “sheer hypocrisy.”

When asked about the statement of Chidambaram welcoming the apex court order, he said “These are the people who were defending the amendment and who originated these amendments. It is sheer hypocrisy.”

Bhardwaj, who was the Law Minister when the amendment to IT Act of 2000 inserting Section 66 A was cleared, said Chidambaram is a lawyer and he knows it is a correct judgement.

“But earlier they were defending also…they were a party to it. So why feel shy? You should own up. The Cabinet had approved it. There is no harm saying we brought a bad law,” he had told Times Now.

Even party president Sonia Gandhi was not spared. Bharadwaj was quoted by Zee News as saying, “Aur main us bechari (Sonia Gandhi) ko koi dosh nahin deta (And I don’t blame that helpless lady). Not bringing Priyanka Gandhi into politics is another reason why people are not happy.”

Bharadwaj alleged that the leadership was responsible for the party’s rout as they “took the senior experienced leaders by the ear and took them out.”

Bharadwaj, who chose to side with Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay during the Emergency, is one of those many dissatisfied old-timers who have been sidelined by the party.

Infact, Congress managers dismissed Bharadwaj’s comments as “attention-seeking measures.” Congress leader Anil Shastri slammed the former law minister and said Bharadwaj was a minister for 15 years and he should be thankful to Sonia Gandhi for that. “All this was courtesy Nehru family; now Bhardwaj blames Sonia ji for Congress’s poor show in elections. Why was he quiet all these yrs,” Shastri said on Twitter.

Nevertheless, such comments from a senior member of the party cannot be pushed under the carpet, especially when Congress is battling many confusions, including guessing a missing Rahul Gandhi’s whereabouts.