‘I can’t sit idle while BJP rots’

Even his suspension from the BJP hasn’t shaken Bhakt Singh. A Sangh Parivar veteran, his is the plaint of the Old Turk, the ‘‘hard-core loyalist’’ who was asked to step aside to let the ‘‘younger blood’’ flow.

Denied ministership, the 80-year-old, who was jailed along with Rajju Bhaiya and Murli Manohar Joshi in 1947 when the RSS was briefly banned, triggerred off a chain of actions and reactions that isn’t showing signs of stopping. ‘‘My fight is to save the party’s sagging image, and I can’t sit idly while the party rots because of corruption and nepotism,’’ he told The Indian Express.

Singh, whose political record has been unblemished by allegations of corruption, has been waiting in the wings for years. In 1967, he was appointed as a minister in the Sayunkt Vidhayak Dal government in Uttar Pradesh.

‘‘My name was cleared for a ministry in the Morarji Desai government, but somehow I wasn’t named as minister,’’ said Bhakt Singh, who represents the Shahabad constituency.

Bhakt Singh’s main complaint is the manner in which the party high command has been trying to wish the dissidents away by ‘‘avoiding’’ them. ‘‘The party leadership at the Centre isn’t ready to talk to us. Kushabhau Thakre was sent to the state to resolve the crisis, but he said he wouldn’t talk to the rebels,’’ Bhakt Singh complained. ‘‘If they do not want us, we don’t want them either.’’