After Advani, BJP drops Murli Manohar Joshi

Days after replacing party patriarch L K Advani in Gandhinagar, the BJP on Tuesday waded into a fresh row by dropping Murli Manohar Joshi, another member of the 'Margdarshak Mandal', from Kanpur Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh.

The party fielded Satyadev Pachauri from the seat, a day after BJP's general secretary (organisation), Ram Lal, conveyed the message of the party’s central leadership to Joshi that he should announce his withdrawal, a request not heeded by the veteran.

Joshi had won the Kanpur seat with a massive margin in 2014 when the BJP swept 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh on the crest of the Narendra Modi wave.

The BJP could be in for more embarrassment as the sulking Joshi is said to be in no mood to take it lying down and is contemplating lodging a protest with the other veterans of the Margdarshak Mandal who have been denied tickets.

Among other notables on the list of 39 candidates issued on Tuesday, the BJP has swapped the seats of Maneka Gandhi and son Varun Gandhi, who will not contest from Sultanpur and Pilbhit, respectively. The party has fielded actor-turned-politician Jaya Prada (former Samajwadi Party MP) from Rampur, against Samajwadi Party veteran Azam Khan. Rita Bahuguna Joshi, the Congress-turned-BJP minister in UP government, has been fielded from Allahabad parliamentary seat.

However, it was Joshi’s candidature which turned the toughest for the party to decide on, as the veteran was resisting every move to keep him out of contest.

On Monday, when the message was conveyed to him by Ram Lal — who was also the one to contact Advani last week — Joshi is learnt to have expressed his displeasure. Joshi’s office later issued a three-line message that was circulated on social media soon after. Addressed to “Dear Voters of Kanpur”, it read: “Shri Ramlal, General Secretary (Org.) Bharatiya Janata Party conveyed to me today that I should not contest the ensuing Parliamentary elections from Kanpur and elsewhere.”

Opposition parties were quick to train their guns on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said if it's true that Joshi has been benched, it was Narendra Modi's payback for the scathing Estimates Committee report that Joshi had authored, which said India's defence spending as a percent of GDP was at the pre-1962 level.

“After Advani, it's MM Joshi's turn to join the darshak Mandal from the Margdarshak Mandal to which Modiji had consigned him,” tweeted lawyer activist Prashant Bhushan.

He also recalled that Joshi, as the chairman of the Standing Committee of Parliament on Estimates, had asked the government about a list submitted by former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan about bank defaulters running away. “Modi doesn't forgive,” Bhushan said.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said, “First BJP veteran Advani, now Murli Manohar Joshi asked not to contest elections. A party that misuses the ashes of its greatest leader, politicises the dead bodies of its armed forces and kicks its elders in the shins cannot be the representative of India.”

The BJP, however, cites the decision not to field party leaders above 80 years as a “principle decision” and expects veterans to make way for Generation Next. After 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Advani, who had opposed Modi's elevation as the BJP's face, was sent to the Margdarshak Mandal along with Joshi and some other seniors.

Advani (91) and Joshi (85) also do not figure on the list of 40 party leaders who will campaign for BJP candidates in the first two phases of elections in Uttar Pradesh. The party's list of star campaigners in Uttar Pradesh has the names of PM Modi, Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharti.

Sushma and Uma Bharti are not contesting the polls. B C Khanduri, B S Koshiyari and Kariya Munda also didn't get tickets this time. Another ageing party veteran Kalraj Mishra, an MP from Deoria, had announced beforehand that he would not contest 2019 polls. Former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Shanta Kumar had also announced his withdrawal. No such remarks were made by either Advani or Joshi.