Have turned down invite to rejoin BJP: Kalyan Singh

Terming the Bharatiya Janata Party as a "dead snake", former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and leader of Jan Kranti Party Kalyan Singh on Thursday claimed that he had turned down an invitation to return to his old party.

"BJP President Nitin Gadkari had separately sent three senior leaders with two proposals including one to return to the BJP with responsibility to lead it and the second to have seat adjustments for the 2012 Assembly elections," Singh told newsmen in Lucknow.

"I made it clear that both the proposals were not acceptable and I will never return to the BJP," he said, terming the party as a "dead snake" to which he would neither cling nor put around his neck.

Singh, who floated Jan Kranti Party after leaving BJP in 2009, said the leaders who met him were state unit president Surya Pratap Shahi, in-charge of election management Sanjay Joshi and Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath.

Lashing out at the BJP for its stand on the issue of corruption, he said it had no moral right to speak on the issue.

Singh also demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the mining contracts allotted to the sons of a senior BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh in Chhattishgarh and Jharkhand -- both states ruled by BJP.

He ridiculed the proposed rath yatra by BJP leader L K Advani, saying such yatras have now lost meaning and have become customary. Advani's yatra will make no difference as people have lost faith in the party, he added.