Cong MP Gowda hits out at BJP over LS ticket to Pragya

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Gowda Saturday lashed out at the BJP for Malegaon blast accused Pragya Singh Thakur's candidature from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat. Thakur is pitted against senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh in Bhopal.

Thakur is under fire for saying former Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare died in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack because she had cursed him for `torturing' her when he probed the Malegaon blast case as then chief of the state Anti-Terrorism Squad. "The BJP had no other candidate that they had to go for a terror accused?" Gowda, the convener of the Congress' manifesto committee, questioned.

"She is out on bail on health grounds. Here is a person charged with a crime of this nature (Malegaon blast case) and the prime minister acknowledges her candidature," he said. "After she is nominated (by the BJP), she defames a martyr. This is what PM Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah have reduced this country too," Gowda alleged.

He claimed Thakur was first arrested by the then BJP government in Madhya Pradesh under Shivraj Singh Chouhan for alleged involvement in the killing of RSS worker Sunil Joshi. Joshi was shot dead on December 29, 2007 near Dewas in MP, and Thakur and seven others were acquitted in the case by an MP court in February 2017.