Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, July 2

The unrest within the BSP over its pact with the SAD refuses to die down with party workers today giving an ultimatum to the leadership to review the seat sharing pact by July 5 or “face consequences”.

SET JULY 5 DEADLINE

• BSP party workers on Friday gave an ultimatum to the leadership to take a decision by July 5 or ‘face consequences’
• They also demanded reinstatement of expelled state BSP chief Rachhpal Raju, who joined them for the meeting on Friday
• They said if the BSP leadership failed to act, they would be forced to organise a ‘Bahujan panchayat’ to press for the demands publicly

Party leaders, including former state general secretary Sukhwinder Kotli, former bureaucrat Khushi Ram, who had contested the last parliamentary polls from Hoshiarpur, and former office-bearers Thekedar Bhagwan Dass, Dr Makhan Singh, Parshotam Heer, Jagdish Rana and Babu Pyare Lal, met in Hoshiarpur today and gave party the ultimatum.

As expelled state BSP president Rachhpal Raju also joined them for the meeting, the party leaders demanded his reinstatement, saying he had only raised a genuine demand of ground-level workers to press for getting Phillaur, Adampur, Banga and a few other reserved seats in the BSP’s kitty, instead of allotting these to the SAD.

They said if the BSP leadership failed to act, they would be forced to organise a ‘Bahujan panchayat’ to press for the demands publicly. “A large number of workers will support us and in that case, we may even be forced to take some drastic steps,” said Kotli.