NSA on Varun: BJP warns Mayawati

Asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party would firmly stand with party candidate Varun Gandhi and his mother Maneka on the issue of National Security Act being invoked against the young leader, BJP national secretary Arun Jaitley on Saturday said that Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party would "pay a heavy price if the charges against Varun were not withdrawn."

"The UP CM must stop her politics of atrocities. In the entire history of the state such a step has never yielded any sort of political success. The slapping of NSA on Varun and the attempt to murder charges are simply vindictive. If the charges were not withdrawn then the BSP will have to pay a heavy price for it", Jaitley, the BJP national secretary, said in Lucknow.

Speaking to media persons at the party office, Jaitley said, "Why should Maneka Gandhi apologise? She had only objected to the slapping of NSA on Varun. At this point of time this is not a personal fight, but a political one. Mayawati has started a wrong tradition and the entire BJP stands firm behind Maneka and her son Varun."

When told that even Union minister Arjun Singh (of the Congress party) had termed the invoking of NSA on Varun as `unfortunate', Jaitley said, "A person who knows it (the implications) will never support it. In fact a step like this will only weaken the democracy."