BJP president Amit Shah on Friday launched a damage control exercise promising action against Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and two other Karnataka MPs who fuelled the raging controversy backing Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse.
A day after Thakur sparked outrage by hailing Godse as a "true patriot", Union Minister Ananthkumar Hegde and BJP MP Nalinkumar Kateel came out in support of Gandhi's assassin, forcing Shah to do the firefighting.
Apparently upset over the remarks made by the two Karnataka leaders, Shah tweeted "Statements of Ananthkumar Hegde, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Nalinkumar Kateelare their personal opinions. BJP has nothing to do with it. They have withdrawn their statements and apologized. BJP has taken their statements seriously and sent these statements to disciplinary committee."
"The disciplinary committee will seek explanation from all the three leaders and will submit the report to the party within 10 days," he added.
However, facing questions at a press conference on the issue in the evening, Shah said the remarks cannot be treated as their personal opinion and made it clear that "appropriate action" will be taken on the basis of the disciplinary action committee process.
"We won't consider their remarks on Godse as personal," Shah said, adding, "Party has served her a show cause notice and asked her (Sadhvi) to reply within 10 days. After she files a reply, the party's disciplinary committee will take appropriate action."
Following up on Thakur's remarks, Hegde, an MP from Uttara Kannada, had tweeted, "Am glad that 7 decades later today's generation debates in a changed perceptional environment and gives good scope for the condemned to be heard upon. #NathuramGodse would have finally felt happy with this debate."
However, he later deleted the post and claimed that his account was hacked.
Meanwhile, Kateel, an MP from Dakshina Kannada, reportedly tweeted, "Godse killed one, Kasab killed 72, Rajiv Gandhi killed 17,000. You judge who is more cruel in this?"
Kateel later deleted the post and apologised on the micro-blogging site.