BHOPAL, 15 July 2006 — Uma Bharti, president of the newly formed political outfit Bharatiya Janshakti, raised conservative hackles yesterday when she accused family members of former India Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani of having links with mafia and drug peddlers.

Members of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said they were outraged at the allegations. Bharti told newsmen that the clearance to an aviation company by Advani when he was Federal Home Minister in spite of objections by then Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav should be seen in this context.

The former MP said she had documentary evidence of links between terrorists, drug dealers, builders and politicians to prove her point.

She said she would seek an appointment with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and narrate to him all the episodes while demanding a federal probe into the allegations.

Bharti alleges that the former prime minister’s son-in-law, and the former deputy prime minister’s son and daughter and others maintain connections to organized crime. She did not directly accuse Vajpayee and Advani of crime links, but said they must have the courage to take strict action against their family members.

Bharti also accused senior Congressional members of similar crime connections, and accused BJP President Rajnath Singh’s of not having the courage to take action against such people.

Bharti, who is a former Chief Minister of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, claimed that she had ample evidence to prove that Madhya Pradesh has become a center of mafia activities, terrorism and Naxalism.