New Delhi: Because the race for the Vice President’s submit begins to warmth up, the BJP has launched a scathing assault on the INDIA bloc’s nominee former Supreme Court docket choose Justice (retd) B. Sudershan Reddy, accusing him of compromising nationwide safety, supporting Naxal insurgency and sympathising with anti-national parts.

Justice Reddy, who served as a Supreme Court docket choose till his retirement in 2011, has come beneath harsh BJP criticism even earlier than he and NDA nominee CP Radhakrishnan formally launch their marketing campaign for the September 9 vice presidential ballot. 

In a caustic X submit, BJP nationwide spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari stated the vice presidential alternative of the “INDI Alliance” has  uncovered its hypocrisy and chapter “but once more”. 

“Congress has fielded B. Sudershan Reddy as its Vice-Presidential nominee — a person whose document is marred by harmful judgments, anti-national sympathies, and shameless opportunism,” he stated. “As soon as dismissed by Congress itself as a yes-man, right now paraded as a hero.” 

“As SC choose, struck down Salwa Judum — crippling India’s combat towards Naxals at peak Maoist violence. Petitioned towards India’s arms exports to Israel — undermining India’s international partnerships. Shielded Congress within the Bhopal Fuel Tragedy cover-up, refusing to reopen Anderson’s escape case. Headed Telangana caste census riddled with flaws and beneath illustration of OBCsIn 2013, Congress & NCP black-flagged his Lokayukta appointment, branding him a puppet. In 2025, the identical man is now their ‘messiah’!”

Bhandari then referred to the Congress’s criticism of the NDA authorities for nominating Justice (retd) Ranjan Gogoi to Rajya Sabha after he demitted workplace because the forty sixth Chief Justice of India.

“They attacked Justice Gogoi for becoming a member of RS, however fielded their very own retired choose for VP. This election isn’t just about one candidate, it’s about whether or not India’s highest places of work will replicate nationwide resolve or Congress’s soiled compromise on Nationwide Safety!” Bhandari stated. 

The BJP additionally introduced up Justice (retd) Reddy’s position within the Bhopal gasoline tragedy litigation. In 2011, as a part of a five-judge Supreme Court docket bench led by then chief justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice Reddy rejected the CBI’s healing petition looking for a retrial and harsher punishment for Union Carbide executives. 

The petition was filed after public outrage over the lenient two-year sentences handed down in 2010 to seven former workers of Union Carbide.

The bench held that the CBI had not supplied a convincing rationalization for reopening the case. The BJP has constantly accused former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and then-MP Arjun Singh of facilitating the escape from India of then chair and CEO of Union Carbide Warren Anderson in 1984.

In one other criticism, BJP leaders identified Justice Reddy’s signing a petition final 12 months, together with 24 different eminent personalities, urging the defence ministry to halt arms exports to Israel throughout the Gaza battle.

Former Supreme Court docket choose B. Sudarshan Reddy, now put ahead by the I.N.D.I Alliance for the Vice President’s workplace, is remembered for a judgment that weakened India’s combat towards Naxalism.

On 5 July 2011, Justice Reddy delivered the decision within the Salwa Judum case —… https://t.co/Ti7o9RokXG

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) August 19, 2025

BJP IT Cell chief and West Bengal in-charge Amit Malviya criticised him for his 2011 verdict within the Nandini Sundar vs. State of Chhattisgarh case. The ruling struck down the state’s coverage of arming tribal youth as Particular Police Officers (SPOs) beneath the Salwa Judum motion, declaring it unconstitutional.

“The ruling got here on a petition spearheaded by Nandini Sundar, a Delhi College professor lengthy accused of proximity to Naxal teams and even named in a homicide FIR in Bastar (later dropped). She can be the spouse of Sidharth Varadarajan, the Left-leaning editor of The Wire. Thus, the judgment was seen not simply as a blow to a state authorities’s counter-insurgency technique, however for instance of judicial sympathy for these aligned with the Maoist trigger,” he stated in an X submit. 

“At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly known as for the dismantling of Naxalism root and department, the I.N.D.I Alliance has chosen to place up a nominee whose legacy carries the taint of siding with those that enabled the insurgency,” he stated, billing the vice presidential election as an ideological battle between “nationwide responsibility and those that, by phrase and deed, have proven sympathy for India’s enemies”.  

“This contest will not be merely about filling a constitutional submit. It’s about whether or not India’s highest places of work will replicate the spirit of nationwide resolve towards violent extremism, or relapse into the ideological compromises of the previous,” he stated. 

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Previous BJP reward for Justice Reddy

Regardless of the present assaults, the BJP had earlier praised Justice Reddy for his 2011 landmark judgment on black cash. Earlier than his retirement, a bench headed by Justice Reddy and Justice (retd) S.S. Nijjar had pulled up the UPA authorities for not exhibiting seriousness in bringing again black cash stored in financial institution accounts overseas. It had ordered the formation of a Particular Investigation Workforce (SIT).

Then BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar had known as it a “slap within the face of the UPA authorities,” saying the courtroom had uncovered the Congress-led Centre’s unwillingness to behave towards corruption.

“We welcome the Supreme Court docket choice to nominate a SIT on the Black cash challenge. This choice has absolutely uncovered the federal government and the Congress. The federal government doesn’t need to take any robust and sincere measures to test corruption and black cash. This choice is a slap within the face of the federal government,” he had stated. 

“This choice is proof that even the courtroom doesn’t belief the federal government’s intentions on tackling corruption,” he stated.

Earlier than the judgment got here, senior BJP chief L.Okay. Advani, who had made black cash a central challenge within the 2009 Lok Sabha marketing campaign, wrote a weblog saying the highest courtroom will “earn the lasting gratitude of the Indian folks by forcing the federal government to convey again all this wealth. Hoping the apex courtroom will convey again black cash slashed overseas.”

“The nation expects the Supreme Court docket to pursue this matter to its logical finish. USD 462 billion is a large quantity that may convey a few miraculous metamorphosis in Indian circumstances,” Advani had stated, referring to the admonishment of the apex courtroom to the federal government for not disclosing the names of individuals whose cash is stashed overseas. 

The black cash petitions have been filed by Ram Jethmalani and others. Listening to the case, justices Reddy and Nijjar requested then solicitor basic Gopal Subramanium, “What’s the issue in disclosing data. What’s the privilege you might be claiming for not disclosing details about those that have cash deposited in international financial institution?”

Narendra Modi, then the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, ran his profitable 2014 Lok Sabha ballot marketing campaign across the challenge of black cash and corruption. After taking on as prime minister, Modi constituted an SIT on black cash as his Cupboard’s first choice

“There was an try to avoid wasting somebody that’s the reason the UPA didn’t represent an SIT,” the PM would later inform Rajya Sabha.

Appointed as Lokayukta by Goa govt 

Amid the nationwide anti-corruption sentiment towards the UPA authorities, fuelled by talks across the alleged coal rip-off, 2G rip-off and the Anna Hazare motion, then BJP-ruled Goa, led by chief minister Manohar Parrikar, appointed Justice B. Sudershan Reddy because the state’s first Lokayukta in March 2013.

However, when Justice Reddy was being sworn in because the Goa Lokayukta, opposition MLAs reportedly remained absent. Whereas they didn’t formally boycott the ceremony, opposition accused Justice Reddy of being a “sure man” of Parrikar.

In 2010, an impeachment movement was moved towards Calcutta Excessive Court docket Decide Justice Soumitra Sen after a Supreme Court docket inquiry committee and Rajya Sabha appointed panel, additionally together with Justice Reddy, concluded that Justice Sen had dedicated “misconduct” and ought to be held accountable.

The BJP supported each the committee’s findings and the impeachment movement.

Throughout the debate on the movement in 2011, Chief of Opposition Arun Jaitley stated in Rajya Sabha, “Sen had misled the Judges Inquiry Committee, and even the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday throughout his defence. He’s unfit to be within the workplace of a Decide. The defence of Justice Sen has thus to be rejected.”

“A choose is like Caesar’s spouse. He have to be past suspicion. Caesar divorced his spouse merely on the idea of suspicion. Those that occupy excessive places of work should stay via the scrutiny of highest requirements of probity. A choose have to be unsuspectable”.

(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)

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