'Give me Rs 50 crore, will kill PM Modi': BJP questions Oppn's silence over Tej Bahadur's video

The BJP on Tuesday questioned the Opposition’s silence over a video in which Tej Bahadur Yadav, a sacked BSF soldier whose nomination as SP candidate from Varanasi was rejected by the EC, is purportedly talking about assassinating Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Addressing a press conference, party spokesperson Sambit Patra said: “A video has been running since yesterday in which Tej Bahadur Yadav is heard asking for Rs 50 crore to assassinate Modi. This is fateful as we have been seeing this video since yesterday but neither the media nor the opposition has spoken about it.”

“The echo of sponsored slaps on Kejriwal ji is heard for months, but there is no talk of conspiracy to kill the PM of the nation. Why is the opposition silent on this? Does the opposition agree with Tej Bahadur,” he asked.

Patra further asked if the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party will apologise to the nation after seeing the video.

“SP chief Akhilesh Yadav was praising Tej Bahadur a few days back. I want to ask the SP-BSP alliance if it will apologise to the nation after watching the video,” Patra said.

The Samajwadi Party had fielded Tej Bahadur as its candidate against Modi but the Election Commission rejected his nomination papers, saying he had not furnished all details sought by it.

On Monday, the BJP expressed “shock” over the video. Some news channels have shown the video but have not vouched for its authenticity.

BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao said the video illustrates how in the face of imminent defeat political rivals have degenerated into using violent methods.

When Tej Bahadur Yadav was asked about the video, he confessed that he is the man in the video but claimed that the clip was ‘doctored’ as he never spoke to assassinate the Prime Minister. The sacked BSF jawan said that the video was shot by a Delhi Police constable in 2017 when he was staging a dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi after his dismissal.

“I have seen that video. This video was shot in 2017 without my knowledge. I had spoken to that person on several issues related to soldiers. But I never spoke about any plot of assassination of Prime Minister. The video is doctored,” Indian Express quoted Yadav as saying.

On Monday, Yadav moved the Supreme Court, challenging the Election Commission’s decision to cancel his candidature from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency. In his plea, Yadav termed the decision of the poll panel discriminatory and unreasonable and said it should be set aside.

Tej Bahadur Yadav, the Border Security Force (BSF) Constable was dismissed from service after he had released a video in 2017 on quality of food served to soldiers. He had posted four videos on the social media in January, 2017, that showed him complaining about the unpalatable food at his camp along the Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir.