Two days after releasing its first list of candidates for Assembly elections in Haryana, the BJP faced protest over the ticket distribution on Thursday.
BJP Mazdoor Morcha Chief Ramesh Balhara on Thursday sat on a ‘dharna’ in front of State BJP headquarters in Rohtak, accusing the party of doing injustice by not including his name in the first list of candidates.
During ‘dharna’ he also placed a big saffron coloured cut-out with a message in Hindi “Akhir mera kasoor kya hai”.
BJP’s Parliamentary Board, had on Tuesday (September 9), while releasing its first list of 43 candidates, nearly half the total numbers of 90 seats for Assembly elections in Haryana, had given tickets to several turncoats, who had recently joined the saffron party after leaving Congress or INlD in the State.
Former All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Birender Singh’s wife Prem lata has been given ticket from Uchana Kalan of Jind district, rebel Congress leader Chhatar Pal Singh will contest from Hansi constituency as BJP candidate, Master Hari Singh, who was also in Congress till 2012, got a BJP ticket from Nalwa constituency of Hisar district.
Sharing his resentment over the same, Balhara, said, “Though it was up to the party to decide to whom they wanted to field from Meham, the leaders like me has nurtured party in the State for last 30 years when no one was here to take BJP’s name”.
BJP has given ticket to Shamsher Singh Kharkhara from Meham this time. He had lost to Jat leader, Congress MlA Anand Singh Dangi in the 2009 Assembly polls by a margin of 6,966 votes as an Independent candidate.
While blaming the State BJP leadership, Balhara alleged that the State leadership deliberately dropped his name from the list of aspirant candidates, thus, the high command didn’t consider him while finalising the first list of candidates.
The resentment among several BJP leaders is conspicuous after the declaration of first candidate list.
Infuriated over being “ignored” by BJP’s Karnal unit in the list of aspirant candidates for the Assembly election, several key members of district and block units had sent a letter to their national president Amit Shah and requested Shah to intervene in the matter.
Unhappy over the candidature of Pawan Saini for ladwa Assembly constituency, BJP State working committee member Jatinder Singh Khurdban has said, “The party has let me down once again. I was first ignored in the lok Sabha elections and now they have ignored me in the assembly polls too.”
Khurdban has called a supporters’ meeting to discuss the future course of action and he would announce his decision on Friday after the meeting.
Earlier, the Indian National lok Dal (INlD) had also faced protest after releasing two lists of candidates for Assembly elections. Showing their resentment, more than a dozen senior leaders, sitting and former MlAs had left the INlD and joined saffron party in Haryana.