BJP expels spokesperson after blistering attack over ‘humiliation’ of Satya Pal Malik, Jagdeep Dhankhar

The Bharatiya Janata Party on August 8 expelled its Rajasthan spokesperson, Krishna Kumar Janu, after a viral video showed him sharply criticizing the party’s leadership over its treatment of late former Governor Satya Pal Malik and former Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar — both prominent Jat leaders.

In an order issued by BJP state disciplinary committee chairperson Onkar Singh Lakhawat, the party said Janu failed to justify his conduct in response to a June 20 show-cause notice, sealing his expulsion for six years. Officially, the action was linked to his earlier objections to the appointment of Harshini Kulhari as the party’s Jhunjhunu district president.

However, the controversy erupted after footage surfaced of Janu accusing BJP’s Jat leaders of remaining silent despite what he described as the “tiraskar” — disdain — shown to Malik during his last rites, when he was denied a state funeral, and the abrupt, unceremonious exit of Dhankhar from the Vice-President’s office without a farewell or speech.

“The way Malik was treated has hurt me deeply,” Janu said in the video, questioning why Jat MPs, MLAs, and office-bearers had not spoken up. “If it happened to Malik, it can happen to you. The disdain cannot be justified.”

Janu accused the BJP’s current leadership of systematically sidelining veteran mass leaders — from L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi to Vasundhara Raje and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the latter reduced, he alleged, “to a puppet.” He said the party was “moving in the wrong direction” and warned that compromising with principles out of fear was “not the way of a Jat.”

He also invoked the community’s historical defiance, citing Guru Nanak Dev, Jambhoji Maharaj, and Dayanand Saraswati, urging Jat leaders within the BJP to “clash with an arrogant government” rather than remain silent in the face of humiliation.