Progress party star probed for India scam
Richard Orange - [email protected]
Published: 27 Aug, 2013 CET.
Updated: Tue 27 Aug 2013 11:16 CET
The Progress Party's rising star, Himanshu Gulati, has been investigated by his party for signing up twenty three new party members without mentioning that they all lived in India.
The twenty-five year old, who leads the party's youth wing, paid the membership fees for the members, who he had met while studying on the subcontinent, and gave them false addresses in Oslo. "I went to film school in India and these were friends of mine who wanted to show their support for me by becoming members of FpU [The Progress Party]," Gulati said when challenged by VG on the revelations. The revelations will cast some suspicions about the party's claim to broad support from Norway's immigrant community, despite its hard-line stance on immigration. Progress Party general secretary Geir Mo was alerted to Gulati's unorthodox recruitment methods by other members of the party's Akerhus branch, where Gulati was then based. An internal investigation concluded that Gulati's method was "not the ideal way to drive membership work and membership recruitment", but did not sanction him. "This is four or five years ago. I do not remember all the details of the case. I really have nothing more to add beyond what I have already said," he told VG.
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The twenty-five year old, who leads the party's youth wing, paid the membership fees for the members, who he had met while studying on the subcontinent, and gave them false addresses in Oslo.
"I went to film school in India and these were friends of mine who wanted to show their support for me by becoming members of FpU [The Progress Party]," Gulati said when challenged by VG on the revelations.
The revelations will cast some suspicions about the party's claim to broad support from Norway's immigrant community, despite its hard-line stance on immigration.
Progress Party general secretary Geir Mo was alerted to Gulati's unorthodox recruitment methods by other members of the party's Akerhus branch, where Gulati was then based.
An internal investigation concluded that Gulati's method was "not the ideal way to drive membership work and membership recruitment", but did not sanction him.
"This is four or five years ago. I do not remember all the details of the case. I really have nothing more to add beyond what I have already said," he told VG.
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