It is not the issue of who will contest from the parliamentary constituencies of lucknow and Varanasi but growing dissent among party workers over giving preference to outsiders over insiders in ticket distribution that has made party leadership nervous and has delayed declaration of candidates from Uttar Pradesh.
"It is the fight between the "outsiders" and "insiders" that has plagued party leadership. Every day party president Rajnath Singh is getting hundreds of calls from Uttar Pradesh about possibility of revolt by dedicated party leaders if those who joined party recently are given tickets," a senior party leader from Delhi told The Pioneer on Thursday.
If the reports are to be believed that are at least a dozen outsiders who either recently joined BJP or are in touch with senior leaders and are vying for tickets. The list is long and it includes the sitting Samajwadi Party MP from Kaiserganj Brijbhushan Saran Singh who returned SP’s ticket and his son Prateek Bhushan who joined BJP is likely to get ticket from Kaiserganj. Daroga Saroj, a former BSP legislator who joined BJP could get ticket from lalganj.
Kirtivardhan Singh, whose father Anand Singh was dropped from Akhilesh Yadav ministry only because his son joined BJP, could contest from Gonda. Then there is Ram Bali Bind who resigned from BSP to join BJP could get ticket from Bhadohi. Another BSP sitting MP Vijay Singh from Hamirpur who had praised BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is likely to get party ticket from Hamirpur.
Other leaders who joined BJP and are in race for tickets are: former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s son Pankaj Shekhar (Ballia), Phagu Chauhan (Azamgarh), Bal Kishan Chauhan (Mau) and former Bahujan Samaj Party MP Shyama Charan Gupta (Bahraich).
Then there are others like former Congress MP Jagdambika Pal and Nand Gopal Gupta `Nandi’ who have not joined BJP yet but speculations are rife about their joining BJP and even getting ticket from Dumariaganj and Allahabad. The party workers in Basti/Dumariyaganj and Allahabad had staged protest against inclusion of these leaders in the BJP.
In Allahabad protests were held on Thursday when workers alleged that Nandi had claimed that he was in touch with senior leaders like Nitin Gadkari and has been assured ticket from Allahabad. "Nandi is spreading lies and it should be addressed immediately. The party leadership should issue a clarification about whether Nandi is being given ticket or not," party leaders said.
Gupta’s wife Abhilasha is Mayor of Allahabad city. Nandi along with his wife were expelled from the BSP for anti-party activity.BJP state president laxmi Kant Bajpai said that the party has sent its list of probable candidates to central leadership. "The list does not contain the names of Jagdambika Pal and Nandi as claimed by media. However, the Central Election Committee will take a final decision in this regard," he said.
Justifying the anger of the grass root level workers party spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said that BJP is a democratic party and decisions are taken after long discussions. The sentiments of party workers are also taken into account while taking final decision and this time too no such decision will be taken that would affect the interest of party leaders.