Kolkata, Feb 2 (Agencies): The Bengal unit of BJP on Wednesday removed Juhi Chowdhury from the post of general secretary of the party's Mahila Morcha (women's wing) following her arrest in connection with the Jalpaiguri child trafficking case.
The party also expelled her father, Rabindranarayan, from the state unit in which he was a committee member.
Juhi was arrested from near the Indo-Nepal border on Tuesday night. She had been absconding for the past 10 days, after the prime accused in the trafficking racket told the CID that she had promised to help them get favour from the Union government by using her clout in the central leadership in Delhi. The decision was announced by state BJP president Dilip Ghosh.
Ghosh, however, did not rule out the possibility of the party providing legal help to Juhi. Meanwhile, many in Bengal BJP feel she was removed in haste after the prime accused in the case made a statement on Tuesday that Juhi had accompanied her to Delhi and held talks with senior party leaders like Kailash Vijayvargiya, while she waited in an adjacent room.
"Bengal leadership had no option left before it than to remove Juhi from the party as names of our senior leaders are flashed in the media in connection with the child trafficking case," said a senior BJP leader, requesting anonymity.
BJP workers said Vijayvargiya is set to visit Kolkata on March 9 to discuss with party members the child trafficking case and the alleged involvement of party leaders in it.
Some party leaders the removal as a damage control exercise to protect the entire state unit leadership from being grilled by the central leadership. "One of our state leaders, Joyprakash Mazumdar, was also arrested by police for his alleged involvement in a bribery case, but the party is yet to remove him from the organisation... Juhi's act has embarrassed not only the state leadership, but also put the central leadership in a critical situation and our state leaders were virtually forced to remove her to save the entire party from future embarrassment," said the senior BJP leader.
On Wednesday, Juhi was produced before a Jalpaiguri court, which remanded her to CID custody for the next 12 days.