NEW DELHI: Veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi was Tuesday dropped as a BJP candidate for the Lok Sabha elections. MP Shatrughan Sinha, known for his sharp criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party, is set to join the Congress on 28th March.
Murli Manohar Joshi, 85, had won from Kanpur in 2014 but was told by the party leadership that he would not be fielded in the coming elections. The party has not given the ticket to veterans like L K Advani, B C Khanduri and Kalraj Mishra among others.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections Murli Manohar Joshi registered a landslide victory here. He defeated senior Congress leader and former Union Minsiter Sriprakash Jaiswal who remained Kanpur MP from 2004 to 2014.
In the last general elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party had sealed a remarkable 71 seats out of 80 with the then ruling party in the state Samajwadi Party getting just 5 seats. After the coming together of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, a tough contest expected in India’s most populous state.
Last week, the BJP announced candidates for 39 out of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The party dropped Shatrughan Sinha from his Patna Sahib seat.
Sinha is a two-term BJP Lok Sabha member from Patna Sahib but has been dropped by the saffron party which has chosen to field union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from the seat.Sinha has been openly critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
Congress has been contesting from Patna Sahib whenever it has fought the Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the RJD and Singhs statement indicate that decks have been cleared for Sinhas candidature by the Congress leadership.
Sinha even attended West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s mega opposition rally in January. “Even if I’m part of the BJP, I speak for the people and the country first.
