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Kalyan's expulsion painful: Sushma

Former Union minister Sushma Swaraj has said that the expulsion of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh from the Bharatiya Janata Party ''was a subject for introspection by the party''.

Talking to the media in Bhopal, the senior BJP leader said the party should do some introspection on how someone who at one stage was a nayak (leader) had reached such a situation.

The expulsion was ''painful'' for the party as well as Singh, she said. ''Instead of unfolding my views publicly, I prefer to voice it in an appropriate forum,'' she said.

On whether the BJP was steering clear of the Ram temple issue, she said that her party had fought the Lok Sabha election with other alliance partners under the banner of the National Democratic Alliance. ''We had asked for a mandate on a common manifesto,'' she said adding that was the reason for not raking up issues that were not in consonance with the alliance partners.

On the issue of bringing the Women Reservation bill in Parliament, she enthused confidence that the bill would be tabled in the current session itself.

Asked whether she felt sidelined for not being given a berth in the Union Cabinet, she said, ''This concept is totally wrong.''

She denied that she was being made a state governor adding that this was media gossip.

UNI

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