New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Bhopal, Pragya Singh Thakur, who has by now gathered quite the reputation for herself as a loudmouth has once again been caught on the wrong foot while addressing local party workers. Speaking at Sehore on July 21, on her role as an MP, Pragya said it was not her job to clean toilets and drains of others.
With the media picking up her statement fast, BJP national working president J.P. Nadda summoned Pragya to the party headquarters in New Delhi on July 22.
The first time MP, at present out on bail in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case, was reportedly “pulled up” for passing that remark as it was appeared to have been particularly at odds with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet clean-up programme, the Swachh Bharat mission.
Asaduddin Owaisi on BJP MP Pragya Thakur’s remark ‘not elected to clean toilets’: Not at all surprised, neither I’m shocked by this obnoxious statement; she says this because that is her thought process. The MP believes in the caste & class discrimination happening in India.1/2 pic.twitter.com/A1l0DbywDq
— ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2019
Local reports said that in the meeting, Pragya told party workers that her job was to work with the MLAs, local bodies and corporators to get development work done. “So keep in mind…we are not here for cleaning a drain. Is that clear? We are absolutely not (here) for cleaning your toilets. The work which we are supposed to do and are elected for, we do it honestly. This we had said in the past. We are saying it today and will stick to it in future as well,” she added.
Pragya who successfully fought Congress stalwart Digvijay Singh in the recent general elections, had earlier caused nationwide outrage when she had called Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, a “patriot”.
Also read: Challenging Pragya Thakur: I Did What Digvijay Singh Should Have, But Didn’t
Pushed to the corner in the election season, the party leadership had then forced her to apologise even as Modi said he would not be able to forgive her even after her apology.
BJP had swiftly issued her a showcause notice and referred the case to the party’s “disciplinary action committee.” Party president Amit Shah said a decision would be taken on whether to suspend her from the party within ten days. But nothing happened.
News reports later said the committee was virtually non-existent as the person who headed it, Ganeshi Lal, had been named the Odisha governor last year.
Bijaya Chakraborty, another member of the committee, had by then resigned for personal reasons. So the committee, when the case was referred to, had only one member, Satyadev Singh.
A report in The Print on June 17 said that Singh was also the president of the Uttar Pradesh BJP disciplinary committee, and that “he is already burdened with more than 100 cases of sabotage and other indiscipline complaints filed by the state BJP.”
On June 4, even though the committee was re-constituted, no action has been taken against Pragya for her Godse comment.
On the campaign trail, Pragya had also made the BJP leadership uncomfortable by claiming that the Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare was killed by Pakistani terrorists in the 26/11 Mumbai attack because of her “curse”. She was pushed to apologise for it too.