New Delhi: Veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who was denied a ticket for the Lok Sabha polls along with L.K. Advani, is understood to have reached out to the Congress to contest the elections.
In what could be the biggest surprise of the 2019 elections, Joshi could be fielded as a joint Opposition candidate for one of the seats in Uttar Pradesh, the NDTV has reported.
Quoting sources, the channel said the Opposition wanted him to take on the Prime Minister in Varanasi, the seat Joshi had vacated for Modi in 2014. But Joshi is reluctant. Instead, he wants to contest from some other seat. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav is also understood to have met Joshi.
According to the channel, both Joshi and Advani are feeling extremely humiliated by the Modi-Amit Shah duo. Advani’s blog on Thursday evening, where he seemingly criticised the duo for dubbing rivals as anti-nationals, reflected his anguish.
Joshi, the channel claimed, was told by Ram Lal, a general secretary of the BJP, that he would not be fielded from Kanpur again. Ram Lal told him that Shah would prefer that he said publicly that he does not want to contest.
An angry Joshi reportedly told him, “You are just a messenger, why can’t Modi and Shah face me?” He went public the next day, writing a two-line letter to the voters of Kanpur, saying the BJP did not want him to contest.
Similarly, Advani did not want to contest another election but wanted it to be seen as his decision. Shah denied him even this simple courtesy, NDTV said, adding that Shah was headed back to Delhi to meet Modi and senior RSS leaders to stave off this elders’ revolt.
While a rebellion by the two veterans will not impact the BJP’s electoral prospects much, it will still cause a huge embarrassment to the BJP. The Opposition is delighted that Modi and Shah can be portrayed as “disrespectful” to the BJP’s founders.
Joshi, it is learnt, has also decided to go public by authoring a scathing critique of the Modi-Shah BJP.
