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Naidu rules out stern action against Pandya

Bharatiya Janata Party president M Venkaiah Naidu has ruled out stern action against Gujarat Minister of State for Revenue Haren Pandya.

Last week Pandya, Member of the Legislative Assembly from Ellis Bridge, Ahmedabad, was served a show-cause notice by Gujarat BJP president Rajendrasinh Rana for alleged breach of discipline.

By way of reply, Pandya sent an aggressive two-page note to Rana on Sunday, not only denying the charge against him, but asking Rana to protect him from "somebody's ego, likes and dislikes, and envy".

In Gandhinagar, it's an open secret that the 'somebody' mentioned in Pandya's reply is none other than Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

It's widely believed that Rana served the show-cause notice on Pandya under pressure from the chief minister.

Rana has been sympathetic to Pandya. In fact, he himself has a few complaints about Modi's style of functioning. But he was forced to act under tremendous pressure from the chief minister.

The notice asked Pandya to explain his alleged statement to the Citizens Council, which was investigating the riots in Gujarat earlier this year.

The non-governmental organisation's findings quoted a Gujarat minister, without naming him, as saying that on February 27, a late-night meeting of top officials was called in Gandhinagar where Modi allegedly told the police to be lenient with Hindus.

Pandya staunchly denies the charge and claims that he never appeared before any such council or investigators.

According to a BJP Member of Parliament in New Delhi, "Modi has a problem with Pandya because he didn't vacate the Ellis Bridge seat in his favour. Modi feels insulted."

Since then the Pandya camp has been aggressively disobeying Modi's dictates. Both politicians refuse to share a public platform or even meet in private.

Pandya has the blessings of former chief minister Keshubhai Patel, who was replaced by Modi, and Madhu Kulkarni of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

According to BJP sources, Modi dislikes Pandya because he suspects that when the latter was minister of state for home, he got the police to monitor Modi's activities on his visits to Gujarat.

Modi may be the BJP's new 'Hindutva' star, but old-timers in the state unit are determined not to allow him any kind of monopoly and want him to take the other politicians along with him, a BJP Member of Parliament from Saurashtra said.

The show-cause notice to Pandya may thus have been nothing but a cosmetic exercise to please Modi.

As for Naidu, he dismissed a question about infighting in the Gujarat BJP at an afternoon press conference on Sunday in one line: "Pandya is in the party."

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