BJP MLA Ganesh Joshi is a philanthropist too

DEHRADUN: On Narendra Modi's birthday last year, Mussourie BJP MLA Ganesh Joshi got computers for a girls school in his constituency. The former Army man says he is a philanthropic.

But on Monday, 58-year-old Joshi seemed to be back to his younger and agitating BJP Yuva Morcha days, as he used a baton to peg back a police horse Shaktimaan which later broke its leg. Booked for animal cruelty, Joshi has not been arrested yet. He appealed in the state assembly that the "wrong case" be dropped but CM Harish Rawat rejected it, saying the horse was a "police soldier".

Joshi joined Army's Garhwal Rifles in 1976 after passing high school from Dehradun. He took voluntary retirement in 1983 to take the political plunge. He proudly proclaims he was jailed during Ram Janambhoomi movement in 1992 - and speaks of his many philanthropic acts like helping in marriages of poor girls and having a street dog at home.

Something however snapped in Joshi on Monday. He says it was after a police horse ran over a BJP activist and the horse squad rained batons "reminiscent of the British action against independence fighters." Joshi turns emotional saying a fringe political outfit declared a Rs One lakh reward for someone cutting his foot as revenge. "Let God take away my foot if I have hit the horse. I haven't," he says. To counter "vicious propaganda" against him given his "popularity as a MLA" Joshi has taken to social media, uploading videos of the incident to "show the real picture."

He says he has compassion for Shaktimaan - pointing that the sand enclosure built for the horse was after he had pointed out why the horse was made to lie on ground and not in a sand enclosure when he visited the horse on Monday night.