25 February 2004	Wednesday	04 Muharram 1425

NEW DELHI, Feb 24: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's party on Tuesday booted out a controversial politician whose decision to sign up with the ruling Hindu nationalists stirred a hornet's nest in party ranks, an official said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew the membership it had given with fanfare last Friday to D.P. Yadav, a member of parliament's upper house, after protests that his alleged nexus with the underworld could bury the party's electoral hopes in a crucial state ahead of polls in April-May.

"The decision was taken in consultation with Mr Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani," said BJP president Venkiah Naidu as other party leaders launched an intense damage-control exercise to defend the decision to recruit Mr Yadav in the first place.

"One individual's entry into the party or his personality will not change the character of the party," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj argued after Mr Yadav was shown the door.

The BJP had been wooing Mr Yadav to join its ranks in a bid to help build up the influence of the Hindu nationalists in Uttar Pradesh state, which returns 85 MPs to parliament's 545-seat elected lower house.

Political foes of Mr Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP is in the opposition, say the politician with the help of a formidable private army reigns as the "uncrowned king" over the northern Indian state's sugar-rich but lawless western regions.

The BJP in the runup to national elections, expected to be held by the end of April, is on a drive to rope in celebrities, Muslim politicians and industrialists in a bid to improve both its political clout and replace its right-wing ideological profile with a secular image.

Mr Yadav, whose son Vikas faces a first-degree murder charge, recently received a 67-per cent thumbs down in a newspaper opinion poll on his recruitment into the national party.

Both the BJP and its political rival, the main opposition Congress party, have several politicians in their ranks facing criminal cases despite a law that bans convicted individuals from contesting elections to public office.

Mr Yadav, who contests as an independent candidate from the Uttar Pradesh constituency of Sambhal, was defiant after he was jettisoned. -AFP