Self-proclaimed god woman by the name of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur joined the BJP on Wednesday. She has now been fielded against senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh from Bhopal. After joining the party, she said she is determined to win. “I have formally joined BJP. I will contest elections and will win also,” Thakur said.
Thakur, who is out on bail, joined the BJP only hours before her name was listed as its candidate, emphasizing the party’s attempt to bring the Hindutva plank at the centre stage of polls particularly in the high profile constituency.
While Thakur was considered an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts before being released last year after the NIA said it had no evidence against her. She is seen as a “deep saffron” figure.
Even as she can be regarded as a good option against Singh, who had called the 2008 Batla House encounter of Indian Mujahideen terrorists fake, Thakur can be a political risk considering her inexperience.
On the contrary, Digvijaya Singh has been a driving force of the campaign against “saffron terror”, having gone to Azamgarh, where several IM terrorists hailed from, only to meet their families and call for an investigation into the Batla House encounter in which Delhi Police officer Mohan Sharma was martyred.
It was only last month, Thakur showed her readiness to contest against Singh after her name had started doing rounds as a potential candidate.
“Digvijaya is an anti-Hindu leader. He had called Hindus terrorists,” Thakur said earlier.
Bhopal is a BJP stronghold as the party has been winning the scat continuously since 1989. The last Congress MP elected from Bhopal was K N Pradhan in 1984.
Thakur was cleared of all wrongdoing by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the 2008 bomb blasts case. But, a special NIA court in December 2018 denied to discharge her from the case.
However, she was granted bail by the Bombay High Court last year.
In case you didn’t know, six people died and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon in north 2008.
During her interview on popular TV show Aap Ki Adalat in India TV hosted by journalist Rajat Sharma, she said: “this was certainly a conspiracy hatched by the Congress-led UPA government, which resulted into my nine-year ordeal. It (the conspiracy) was (meant) to endorse the bogey of saffron terrorism, a term coined by P Chidambaram (former home minister). I am innocent.”