UP leaders ignore Modi's ticket appeal

 Notwithstanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to party leaders not to “ask tickets for their relatives”,  more than a dozen senior leaders are in the queue seeking tickets for their kin for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.

Party state unit sources here said that those pressing for tickets for their kin include union ministers and senior state leaders.

 The sources said the leaders who have crossed over to the party in the past few months have claimed that one of their conditions to desert their parent organisations was the promise that their kin would be given the BJP tickets in the polls.

Union minister Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj Singh, who is the general secretary of the party’s state unit, is a strong contender for one of the Assembly seats in Lucknow.

 Rajasthan governor and former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh’s grandson too is in the queue from Etah district, the sources said.

 At least five Lok Sabha members from the state are also in line to get tickets for their sons.