AYUSH minister clears air on his aide's sacking

Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Naik has said his private secretary Nitin Sardare was asked to resgin on the instruction of the party bosses.

Naik has been in the spotlight after Sardare was allegedly sacked for putting up posters greeting Sanjay Joshi on his birthday. Joshi is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bete noire.

In a Facebook post uploaded late on Tuesday, following media reports of Sardare's abrupt sacking, Naik said he was not aware if Sardare was putting up posters congratulating Joshi, a former colleague-turned-competitor-turned-adversary of Modi.

"The party told me that he is charged with indiscipline and that he has to go. So, I asked him to resign and he has resigned," Naik said in his Facebook post uploaded around 11 p.m. on Tuesday.

Media reports earlier said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership had initiated action against several party leaders who had publicly wished Joshi on his birthday on April 6. Among those was Sardare, who has been Naik's aide for several years.

Joshi, a contemporary of Narendra Modi in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP in Gujarat, over the years, emerged as a bitter critic of the prime minister.

Naik, however, claimed that he was in Goa to attend a religious function and he had no idea about what had transpired around Joshi's birthday.

"I have seen some wrong updates about me on electronic media since morning regarding some birthday wishes and putting up of posters and banners about the same. This is to clarify that I am nowhere involved in this matter and wrong information is passed on by some news channels as I was in Goa for a religious function from April 5 to April 12," Naik said in his post.

"I don't know whether Nitin Sardare was putting up posters on Sanjay Joshi's birthday," he added.