Will obey party call, won’t hurt Modi’s prospects, says senior BJP leader
Breaking his silence on the controversy revolving around his candidature from Varanasi lok Saba seat in Uttar Pradesh, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Sunday said he would accept any decision of the party like a “disciplined soldier” and hoped it would neither dent the prestige of BJP’s Prime Minister nominee Narendra Modi nor hurt party’s electoral chances.
In an indication of thaw in the party over the issue, another senior leader Sushma Swaraj also denied report of differences in the party over the Varanasi seat. “I was present in the meeting in Delhi on Saturday. lok Sabha seats for UP did not figure in the deliberations as reported in the media,” Sushma told mediapersons in Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh.
At the same time, RSS said it is “worried” over the reported row but hoped the BJP will amicably resolve it. “We are worried... But we feel they (BJP) are experienced enough as we had seen on earlier occasions. They are capable. They will solve the problem,” RSS general secretary Suresh Bhaiyaji Joshi told reporters on the concluding day of the three-day meet of its top policy making body, Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha in Bangalore.
Joshi said party’s Central Parliamentary Board would take a decision on Varanasi seat on March 13 when Central Election Committee (CEC) would also meet to release the third list of the BJP lok Sabha candidates.
It is understood that the party has planned to field Modi from Varanasi “to maximise” the impact of his popularity on 40 to 50 lok Sabha seats in UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. In that even, Joshi may be asked to contest from Kanpur.
Joshi was speaking to newspersons after attending a meeting of representatives of farmers at his residence.Asked if he would accept a decision to field Modi from the prestigious eastern Uttar Pradesh seat, he snapped, “every disciplined soldier accepts” party’s decision.
On the issue of “poster war” in Varanasi for and against Modi and him, Joshi said there was no poster campaign and the one like “Modi lao Desh Bachao” was there (on the walls) before the lok Sabha polls were announced. “It is media fiction,” he said, downplaying the controversy.
Joshi shifted his seat from Allahabad after winning from there for three times and got elected from Varanasi in 2009. The senior BJP leader refused to answer questions whether he himself would like to contest from Varanasi or elsewhere. “I don’t talk about such issues outside. Whatever I say is within the party,” he said to repeated questions over his stand on the row.
Joshi, who is heading the party’s manifesto committee, on Sunday met 60 representatives of farmers from 25 States, and accepted some of their suggestions to be included in the BJP’s manifesto. Joshi said he was in favour of setting up a permanent commission to decide Minimum Support Price for agricultural produce. Other suggestions, which may be included in the manifesto, are compensation against natural disaster, introduction of less water soaking seeds and ways of increasing surface and ground water table, which he said was depleting fast.