BHOPAL: Former MLA Kalpana Parulekar who left Congress to join Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections , is back in the Congress. Parulekar on Wednesday started 15 days protest for farmers at the Pipliya Mandi in Mandsaur where five persons were killed in police firing on June 6 last year. As Parulekar sat in protest with farmers, a phone call reached her at 11 am when state Congress vice-president (organisation) Chandra Prabhash Shekhar informed her that her suspension has been withdrawn and she is back in the party.Parulekar was suspended by the Congress after she joined AAP. She contested as Congress candidate from Mahidpur assembly seat in Ujjain in the 2013 assembly polls but lost. Speaking to TOI over telephone Parulekar said, “I had discussed my wish to return to the Congress with AICC general secretary in-charge Deepak Babaria and later with PCC chief Kamal Nath. Today, I received a call from the state Congress office confirming my return to the party.”With the return of Parulekar, Congress will take-over the farmers’ protest at Pipliya Mandi from Thursday. “This demonstration will now be held under the Congress’ banner,” she said. “And I will not move out of Pipliya Mandi till chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan accepts the demands of farmers. If the BJP government does not respond, then Kalpana Parulekar will continue the fight from here. I will not move out of here and am not afraid to go to jail. Let Chouhan send me to jail.”She said that farmers' protest of June last year was for fair price of farm produces. “Garlic used to sell for Rs 7000 to Rs 8000 per quintal. The same garlic is now being sold at Rs 200 per quintal. This is the reason why farmers are committing suicide. The chief minister claims he is the son of a farmer and takes votes from the agricultural community to win elections. And yet, he has done nothing for farmers in the one year after the Mandsaur firing incident,” she said.Parulekar claimed there are more than a hundred cases registered against her and said she is not afraid if the government levels more criminal suits against her. In October last year, the 65-year-old former MLA was sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment in a case of morphing RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s photograph. The photograph of Dr Bhagwat was morphed to depict former Lokayukta PP Naolekar as an RSS worker. She was convicted under provisions of the IT Act and other relevant sections of the IPC. However, she was granted bail soon after pronouncement of the sentence.In April last year, she was sentenced to jail in a defamation case filed by former principal secretary of the state assembly Bhagwan D Israni.

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