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Journalism of Courage
The BJP is battling an unwanted controversy over the rape accusation against its Haryana president Mohan Lal Badoli, which has come at a time when the party is leaving no stone unturned to dislodge the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP from power in Delhi.
In Haryana, the party has deferred the elections for the state president’s post till further notice and has not announced any date. The elections that were expected to be held by the end of this month are now expected after the civic body polls next month.
While state BJP leaders have backed Badoli, who is believed to be close to Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Cabinet Minister Anil Vij said “Badoli should step down as state BJP president till the investigation gets over”. He added that though he believed that Badoli would come out innocent after the investigation, to “maintain party’s sanctity, he should resign for the time being”.
The Himachal police have booked Badoli and former BJP publicity cell chairman Jai Bhagwan or Rocky Mital, who is a Haryanvi singer and music composer, on charges of gangrape. The FIR was registered on December 13 based on a complaint by a Delhi-based woman. After news of the FIR emerged earlier in the week, Badoli termed the accusations as “completely baseless” and “politically motivated”.
Sources in the BJP told The Indian Express that the party “knows Mohan Lal Badoli’s reputation and conduct”. A leader said, “The reasons for which he was falsely implicated in this case shall emerge once the Himachal Pradesh police concludes its investigation. But, it has generated a controversy and the party wants the investigation to conclude before it conducts the elections for state president.”
BJP insiders said that “Badoli’s track record as the one who worked for strengthening the party in Haryana stands in his favour”. Sources said that “although his position for the top post has become weakened due to this controversy and during the pendency of the ongoing investigation, he would come out clean”. “It has to be seen if he continues as the state president and till when,” a BJP leader said.
Badoli was brought in as state president last July, replacing Saini who had replaced Manohar Lal Khattar as CM a few months earlier. Badoli, the party’s Brahmin face, helped steady the ship after the BJP’s wobble in the Lok Sabha elections that saw it drop five parliamentary seats. He sat out the Assembly elections as he worked on strengthening the organisation. It paid dividends as the BJP won 48 of 90 seats in the Assembly.
Before entering politics, Badoli ran a shop in the cloth market of Bahalgarh, near Sonipat. In 1995, he was made the mandal president of Murthal and in 2000, when the Indian National Lok Dal was in power in Haryana, he became the first BJP leader to win a zilla parishad election from Murthal. In 2020, the BJP appointed Badoli as its Sonipat president and the following year, he was made general secretary and inducted into the state BJP’s core team. Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, he was drafted into the Haryana BJP’s election committee and was preferred over sitting Sonipat MP Ramesh Chander Kaushik as the party’s candidate. However, Badoli lost the poll to Congress’s Satpal Brahmachari by 21,816 votes.
Badoli is not the first BJP leader in Haryana to face allegations of sexual assault. In December 2022, then Haryana Sports Minister Sandeep Singh, the former India men’s hockey team captain, was accused of sexual harassment by a junior athletics coach. Although Singh stepped down as sports minister in January 2023, he continued as the Minister of State holding other portfolios as then CM Khattar dug in his heels and refused to drop him from his Cabinet in the face of the Opposition’s demands.
When Saini took over in March last year, he did not include Singh and the BJP also did not give him a poll ticket. The case is currently in the trial court.
In 2018, it was a BJP leader’s kin who was at the centre of the storm. Then BJP state president and current Rajya Sabha MP Subhash Barala’s son Vikas Barala was accused of stalking by the daughter of a Haryana cadre IAS officer. The proceedings in the case have not started yet. Barala also did not step down at the time despite the Opposition’s strong protests. Om Prakash Dhankar replaced him as state BJP chief in July 2020 and after Dhankar, Saini took charge of the state BJP in October 2023.
