* Sitting BJP MP from Barabanki cried bitterly in front of her supporters on Thursday evening after she was denied ticket. “What was my fault. At least senior leaders should tell me,” she said at a meeting held at Satrikh where party workers staged protest.
* In Ballia, where Bharat Singh has been replaced by Virendra Singh ‘Mast’, supporters of Singh staged a protest and burnt the effigy of BJP president Amit Shah and ‘Mast’. “We will ensure ‘Mast’ loses this poll if Bharat bhaiya is not given ticket,” the supporters said.
* Babu Chaudhry Lal is another sitting MP who has been replaced in Fatehpur Sikri. “If I was a suitable candidate in 2014, what happened that the party leadership did not consider me suitable for 2019?” he asks.
* Anshul Verma, the sitting MP from Hardoi, resigned and gave his resignation letter to the ‘chowkidar’ (guard) at BJP state headquarters, before he joined Samajwadi Party.
* Union Minister Krishna Raj, who also lost favours with Narendra Modi and Amit Shah this time, blames a UP minister from Shahjahanpur for denial of ticket to him in this edition of the Lok Sabha election.
* Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi told his supporters a day before the candidates’ list was announced that the party had asked him not to contest election.
Resentment is brewing among the BJP leaders over ticket distribution as allegations of nepotism and “money changing hands” is flowing thick and fast, giving a body blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prospect of doing well in this edition of the Lok Sabha election.
“Can you even think that the BJP will do well if dedicated leaders and workers are sidelined? Serious leaders have been dropped and denied tickets because they are not able to supply ‘thaili’ (bag) to the people who matter in the party hierarchy,” Anshul Verma said in Lucknow.
Tempers ran high in Ballia, around 300 km south-east of Lucknow, where the supporters of Bharat Singh raised anti-party slogans. They burnt the effigy of party’s national president Amit Shah. Singh wrote a letter to the party state president Mahendra Nath Pandey, saying that he was a dedicated ‘chowkidar’ of the party who had carried out development works of the government in letter and spirit.
“Ät least tell me why ticket was denied to me,” he wrote in the letter.
Many of the senior leaders are mulling the possibility of switching sides. “We are political leaders. If we are denied tickets despite doing exemplary work we will be left with no option but to join some other party,” said Priyanka Rawat.
The sitting BJP MP from Etawah, Ashok Kumar Dohre, who has been denied ticket this time, joined Congress and will contest election on the ticket of the grand old party.
The BJP has so far announced 61 candidates in Uttar Pradesh, replacing 13 sitting MPs with new faces. Among the leaders who have been denied ticket are Murli Manohar Joshi (Kanpur), Savitribai Phule (Bahraich), Rajesh Pandey (Kushinagar), Bharat Singh (Ballia), Anshul Verma (Hardoi), Priyanka Rawat (Barabanki) , Chaudhary Babu Lal (Fatehpur Sikri) and Rama Shankar Katheria (Agra). The party is yet to announce candidate from Rae Bareli but Ajay Agarwal, who had contested the last election unsuccessfully against UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, has written a letter to party leadership saying if he is denied ticket it would be detrimental for the party.