BSP candidate alleges party demanded Rs 20L for Mayawati’s rally

JALANDHAR: Just within a month of LS elections, a major controversy has broken out within the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as its Chandigarh candidate Parveen Tank today alleged in a party meeting here that he was asked to pay Rs 20 lakh for the proposed rally of Mayawati in the UT ahead of Lok Sabha poll.

Deepkamal Kaur
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, June 25

Just within a month of LS elections, a major controversy has broken out within the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as its Chandigarh candidate Parveen Tank today alleged in a party meeting here that he was asked to pay Rs 20 lakh for the proposed rally of Mayawati in the UT ahead of Lok Sabha poll. He said that while no rally was held, the party in-charge refused to return him the advance money. The party has outrightly rejected his claim.

Tank reportedly raked up the issue in the party meeting addressed by newly appointed chief Jasvir Garhi but he was asked to leave the party office at Tower Enclave here as the meeting called today was meant for Punjab workers and not those from the UT. Tank, who has earlier been a municipal councillor from Gidderbaha and claims himself to be associated with the BSP since long, said when he sought his amount back from the party, he was shown the door.

Coming out of the venue, he alleged, “I had earlier raised the issue in the June 10 meeting and I was told that I would get my money back on June 22. Again when I approached the leaders on the given date, I was told to come again later. Since there was a state meeting to be held today, I chose to rake up the issue in front of workers to get my money back but to no avail.”

Alleging corruption by senior party leaders, Tank alleged, “I gave Rs 5 lakh cash to party in-charge Randhir Benipal in Jalandhar. Then I paid him Rs 10 lakh in Chandigarh. Besides, I also gave him five cheques of Rs 1 lakh each.”

Benipal, however, outrightly rejected Tank’s claims.

He said: “Tank joined us just a week before the elections. He told us that he is a building contractor and would give a boost to the party. We roped him in from Chandigarh and thought that he would run his campaign well. But within days, he said he could not spend from his own side and that the party should support him. Since the elections were just around, we wanted things to pass off peacefully till May 19 and kept silent on all his tantrums. We spent Rs 5 lakh from party donations for him. We never took any money from him on the pretext of rally or anything else. It is a big lie.”