Mumbai: In a major embarrassment for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), posters with photos of Pappu Kalani, a convicted criminal, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been mushroomed all over Ulhasnagar. The saffron party faced flak for forming an alliance with Pappu Kalani’s son Omi Kalani in the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation (UMC).
The BJP had tried to save face saying it is going with Omi Kalani, and not his father. The BJP had made serious allegations against Pappu Kalani in the 80s for his criminal record, but the party in the last week of January forged an alliance with Kalani, an outfit to promote the leader in politics, allotting it almost 28 seats in the UMC.
At the time of the tie-up, BJP minister of state Ravindra Chavan, who is the party in-charge for the UMC polls, had told the media that his party was sealing a deal with a new generation leader.
It may be mentioned here that Pappu Kalani had contested the 1986 Assembly elections on a Congress ticket when then-Congress leader Sharad Pawar, the Nationalist Congress Party supremo, was chief minister. Mr Kalani was booked for the murder of BJP activist Inder Bhateja and few others. In 1993 he was among the first persons who were booked under Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA). The then-Opposition leader in the Legislative Assembly Gopinath Munde, a BJP stalwart, had accused Mr Pawar of “criminalising politics” in state, citing Pappu Kalani’s example.
When asked about the poster, BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari said, “Certainly, a BJP candidate wouldn’t have done that. If any candidate from our alliance used it (the picture), we will instruct them not to use any pictures apart from those of the PM and CM.”
