Three BJP councillors of the Borsad Nagarpalika in Anand district have approached the Gujarat High Court seeking a stay on the proceedings started against them by the party under the provisions of Defection law. The trio Lata Dave,Santaben Thakore and Kamlesh Patel maintains that since they were re-inducted in the party before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and had worked for the BJP in the poll campaign,the defection proceedings do not stand. On the contrary,the BJP claimed that the three had campaigned during the polls purely because of their personal relations with the contesting candidate. BJP leaders said that they had not followed the party whip while voting in the election of the nagarpalika president in 2008. In fact,Dave herself had become the nagarpalika president with the alleged support of some independent candidates. Following this,the party suspended them and a petition was filed to disqualify them as members of the nagarpalika. Challenging this,the three said in their petition before the HC that they were re-inducted in the party in the presence of state BJP president Purushottam Rupala before the Lok Sabha elections. They added they had subsequently campaigned for the party,so they cannot be punished for defection. Dave told Newsline: While being re-inducted in the party,we were given an oral promise that the defection petition will be taken care of after the elections. So,we thought it would be withdrawn. But that did not happen. After using us in the elections,the district BJP authorities betrayed us, she added. Denying their re-induction,Anand BJP president Mahesh Patel said,They might have worked in the elections in support of our candidate only due to their personal relations with the candidate. We never re-inducted them into the party. After the elections,the proceedings on the Defection petition were started by a designated officer. To prove their re-induction,the three moved two applications. But both were rejected and the trio then moved the HC with a petition through their counsel,Prakash Jani,challenging the designated officers order. The HC has granted a stay on the hearing of the Defection petition till it gives order on the petition filed by the three.
