New Delhi: The Chhattisgarh BJP has filed a complaint seeking registration of an FIR against Karuna Shukla, 68-year old niece of late former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Chhattisgarh Congress President Bhupesh Baghel for storming the party office to stake claim on the urn of his ashes lying there.
The Congress and the BJP workers had clashed with intense sloganeering from both sides at the main gate of the “Ekatma Parisar,” the BJP office in Raipur, until the police intervened. The BJP complaint accuses Shukla, who ended her 32 years of BJP association in October 2013 and joined the Congress, of insulting Vajpayee and his ashes.
In a statement, she, however, said she had gone to the BJP office in Raipur with other Congress leaders to stake claim on the urn containing the ashes of Vajpayee that were gathering dust there and not immersed as per the programme announced by the BJP. She was a BJP MP in the 14th Lok Sabha from Janjgir in Chhattisgarh. In 2014, she lost Bilaspur seat she contested after joining the Congress to BJP’s Lakhan Lal Sahu.
Baghel said in a tweet that the BJP should hand over the urn containing ashes of the mortal remains of Vajpayee to Karuna Shukla on behalf of the Congress party, so that the ashes could be immersed as per the rituals.