A legal notice has been sent to Madhya Pradesh BJP president Vishnu Dutt Sharma for allegedly making false and malicious remarks against senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath.
According to the legal notice, Sharma had accused Kamal Nath of conniving with China and destroying the livelihood of crores of small traders and manufacturers by letting Chinese firms dump their goods in the country.
In the legal notice sent on Tuesday, Kamal Nath through his lawyer Varun Tankha, sought an unconditional apology and issue a clarification with respect to his statement dated June 27.
"All the statements issued by you against Kamal Nath are downright canard and scurrilous allegation perpetuated to wrongly benefit your party, namely BJP both in Madhya Pradesh and nationally by besmirching the reputation of a tall national leader," the notice said.
It said that the remarks are highly defamatory, slanderous, and libelous in nature.
"All the reported statements have no factual or evidentiary foundation or truth. No public record supports any part of these false allegations and canard. The statements are purely an offence mechsm to protect your party's politically reducing turf in the wake of upcoming by-elections of 24 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh," the notice said.
"Your intent is to speak lies and falsehood repeatedly, a character which resonates with the political upbringing and atmosphere, fostered by your party. Your objective to spread canard and falsehood in every nook and corner of the state of Madhya Pradesh and the country so as to discredit the Congress leadership in the eyes of approximately 7.5 crore people of MP is writ large," it added.
It said that Sharma's baseless allegations that Kamal Nath reduced the import duty being paid by Chinese compes is totally "false and cannot be more distanced from the truth".
The legal notice said that if an unconditional apology and clarification are not issued, Kamal Nath will be constrained to initiate appropriate legal proceedings, both civil and criminal in nature, as available under the law.
( With inputs from ANI )