<p>The spotlight might be on Varanasi since Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, intends to contest the polls from there.<br /><br /></p>.<p>But in Bihar’s Buxar constituency, which shares a border with Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Lalmuni Choubey, a veteran Brahmin leader of the BJP, who has been a four-term MP and three-term MLA from Buxar, has revolted against the party leadership for denying him ticket and fielding rank outsider Ashwani Choubey.<br /><br />Lalmuni, a close aide of BJP veterans Vajpayee and Advani, has vowed to teach the saffron party a lesson by contesting as an independent. He won this seat four consecutive times from 1996 to 2004. But he lost in 2009 to RJD’s Jagdanand Singh by a slender margin of 2,000 votes.<br /><br />Interestingly, debutant Ashwani literally fell at Lalmuni’s feet before filing his nomination papers as the BJP nominee and pleaded with the latter not to contest against him as an independent.<br /><br />But septuagenarian Lalmuni, who was Bihar’s health minister in the 70s, didn’t yield and instead hit out at the party’s new leadership.<br /> <br />“Rajnath Singh has actually become the president of slaves… The party’s founding fathers like A B Vajpayee, L K Advani and Jaswant Singh are all alive. But look at the way the present leadership is treating the seniors. I am not going to take this humiliation lying down,” he said.<br /><br />Senior BJP leaders including Sushil Modi and party’s in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan tried their best to pacify Lalmuni, but to no avail. BJP insiders insist that there is clear division in the party with upper castes – Brahmins and Bhumihars – who deserted the Congress and shifted their allegiance towards the BJP in 90s – increasingly being marginalised.<br /></p>
<p>The spotlight might be on Varanasi since Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, intends to contest the polls from there.<br /><br /></p>.<p>But in Bihar’s Buxar constituency, which shares a border with Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Lalmuni Choubey, a veteran Brahmin leader of the BJP, who has been a four-term MP and three-term MLA from Buxar, has revolted against the party leadership for denying him ticket and fielding rank outsider Ashwani Choubey.<br /><br />Lalmuni, a close aide of BJP veterans Vajpayee and Advani, has vowed to teach the saffron party a lesson by contesting as an independent. He won this seat four consecutive times from 1996 to 2004. But he lost in 2009 to RJD’s Jagdanand Singh by a slender margin of 2,000 votes.<br /><br />Interestingly, debutant Ashwani literally fell at Lalmuni’s feet before filing his nomination papers as the BJP nominee and pleaded with the latter not to contest against him as an independent.<br /><br />But septuagenarian Lalmuni, who was Bihar’s health minister in the 70s, didn’t yield and instead hit out at the party’s new leadership.<br /> <br />“Rajnath Singh has actually become the president of slaves… The party’s founding fathers like A B Vajpayee, L K Advani and Jaswant Singh are all alive. But look at the way the present leadership is treating the seniors. I am not going to take this humiliation lying down,” he said.<br /><br />Senior BJP leaders including Sushil Modi and party’s in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan tried their best to pacify Lalmuni, but to no avail. BJP insiders insist that there is clear division in the party with upper castes – Brahmins and Bhumihars – who deserted the Congress and shifted their allegiance towards the BJP in 90s – increasingly being marginalised.<br /></p>
