BJP suspends Khanpur MLA Champion for indiscipline

The BJP has suspended Khanpur MLA Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion from the party on charges of indiscipline.

Champion's three-month suspension follows preliminary investigations by the partyinto charges of indiscipline against him and that of threatening a journalist, Pradesh BJP general secretary Naresh Bansal told reporters late on Saturday evening.

Champion cannot attend any of the meetings of the party or its legislators now for three months, Bansal said after a meeting of Pradesh BJP office bearers in Rishikesh.

A video had gone viral recently in which Champion was purportedly threatening an electronic media journalist at Uttarakhand Niwas in New Delhi.

He was also in the news sometime ago for publicly indulging in a war of words with BJP MLA from Jhabreda Deshraj Karnawal.

Champion, who wanted a ticket for his wife for the Lok Sabha polls from Haridwar, had described the then sitting MP from the seat and now HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank as a "migratory bird".

He was among the nine Congress MLAs who had rebelled against Harish Rawat and crossed over to the BJP in 2016.