Kirti Azad says Congress men looted booths for his father; BJP takes a swipe

PATNA: The BJP on Wednesday took a dig at cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad for his faux pas when he told a gathering of the Congress that workers of the party used to loot booths for his late father.

Azad, whose father Bhagwat Jha Azad was a member of the Indira Gandhi cabinet and had served as the Chief Minister of Bihar in the 1980s, had made the utterance at Darbhanga, his parliamentary constituency, on Tuesday a day after he was inducted into the Congress by Rahul Gandhi at New Delhi.

A two-term MP from Darbhanga, Azad who had been associated with the BJP for over a decade was suspended from the party in 2015 after he made accusations against Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in connection with alleged irregularities in the Delhi Cricket Association during the period it was headed by the latter.

"Azad has admitted that booth capturing is a part of the Congress culture. Never were such electoral practices resorted to while he was with the BJP. He used to win elections on our party's ticket chanting Bharat Mata Ki Jai. Now he would be trying his luck by saying Sonia Mata Ki Jai," Bihar BJP president Nityanand Rai told reporters here.

The former test cricketer, however, issued a clarification saying I never meant to say that booths were captured for my father.

When I uttered 'booth lootte' the I was referring to the dedication with which party workers used to manage booths for my father.

I was trying to express how I felt at home in Congress despite having joined the party only a couple of days ago.

Congress MLC Prem Chandra Mishra, who was approached with queries on the episode outside the legislative council premises here, quipped it is obviously a slip of the tongue.

Nobody can say that Congress captured booths.

Had we resorted to such means we would have never lost power.