Shahzad keeps political options open

The former BSP MLA Mohammad Shahzad said that he would launch a social organisation to strengthen communal harmony while he chose to keep his cards as to joining any political party or forming a party of his own close to his chest. While addressing a press conference in Dehradun on Wednesday, the Haridwar strongman however, made it clear that he would not return to BSP because of the humiliation the party heaped on him.

Launching a scathing attack on BSP, he said that the party has drifted far away from the ideals laid down by its founder Kanshi Ram. “It has now been reduced to one of the capitalists,” he said. Though he said he is not joining any political party right now he has not, however, ruled out the same in future.

He said that on June 24 this year, he had met the BSP supremo Mayawati in New Delhi and placed three conditions for rejoining the party. “The first condition I put forward was that I should not be expelled again from the party. I told Behenji that I valued self-respect much more than any post or ticket. But unfortunately, this is what has happened to me again. I have been expelled days after I rejoined the party,’’ said an visibly emotional Shahzad. He, further, said that the mining mafia Subhash Chaudhary had  conspired with some local party leaders to have him ousted from the party as his entry had left them insecure. ‘'Chaudhary met Mayawati on July 11 at her residence where the plan for my removal was firmed up,’’ he said.

Leaving no one in doubt that he would wreak vengeance on the party he was associated with for years during the upcoming general election, the former leader of BSP legislature party in Uttarakhand Assembly said that he would either contest or field some candidate if BSP chooses to field a candidate from Haridwar Lok Sabha seat in 2019 as part of  the Mahagatbandhan.

Dubbing ‘Beef Biryani’ issue raked up by the Laksar MLA, Sanjay Gupta as unfortunate, he claimed that Gupta, close to his family, had taken food in his residence.  “Politicians attending  marriage and other ceremonies of one another being common, it was wrong to read more intto the CM and other Ministers attending wedding ceremony of my son,” he said. 

Referring to the allegation levelled by BJP MLA Gupta that he once boasted of offering Namaz at Har Ki Paidi  on being elected to the Lok Sabha,  Shazad said that the MLA should substantiate the charge with proof. “If all the MPs of the Parliament favour it we would start offering Namaz at Har Ki Paidi, a sacred place. I respect Gangaji,” he said.