After showing the door to senior lawyer and partyman, Ram Jethmalani, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday expelled the sacked Uttarakhand Minorities Commission chairman, Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, who was arrested last week in connection with the Ponty Chadha murder case.
“Our state party president, Bishan Singh Chufal, has expelled Namdhari following his arrest in connection with the murder of Ponty Chadha and his brother, Hardeep,” a state BJP spokesman said. Namdhari was a BJP member and was appointed the chairman of the State Minorities Commission by the former chief minister, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, in 2010.
Ever since his name surfaced as an eye witness in the murder of the Chadha brotjhers, speculation was rife about his possible expulsion from the party. But some top state party leaders were opposing such a move.
The expulsion came after the BJP high command asked the state party leadership to take action against Namdhari to avoid further embarrassment.
Delhi Police had alleged that Namdhari had opened fire at Ponty’s brother, Hardeep, during the shootout at Chattarpur on November 17, which left both the brothers dead.
However, Namdhari said he did not fire at Hardeep. A pistol allegedly used by him during the shootout at Chadha’s farmhouse in South Delhi was recovered by investigators from his residence in Bajpur yesterday.
Namdhari, who faced 14 criminal cases including that of murder had used his political clout to come clean in most of the cases.
“In most of the 14 criminal cases Namdhari has either been set free by the court or police filed closure reports within one or two years of occurrence of the crime,” said Inspector General (Law and Order) R S Meena.
Meanwhile, the state Congress has asked Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna to initiate action against all those BJP leaders who promoted Namdhari to the top post of the state minorities commission.
