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Denied seat, sitting BJP MP threatens but does not quit

Last Updated 23 April 2019, 13:46 IST

BJP on Tuesday chose singer Hansraj Hans for the seventh seat in Delhi ignoring the claims of sitting MP Udit Raj, who initially threatened to quit party and file nomination against party choice but did not do any of these.

With this, the mist over the electoral scene has been cleared and the national capital is all set for a three-cornered contest unless a least expected surprise compromise between Congress and AAP on alliance happen just before the withdrawal of nominations on Friday.

While AAP announced its candidates much before and Congress' last candidate coming late Monday night, BJP had not announced the candidate for North-West Delhi from where Udit Raj is the sitting MP. BJP wanted to drop him and zeroed in on singer Hansraj Hans, a BJP fellow traveller, but protests from the Dalit MP delayed the process.

Udit Raj and his supporters protested at Delhi BJP office on Monday night when the singer was present in the office and even criticised party chief Amit Shah for not attending his calls and taking a decision in his favour.

On Tuesday morning, he initially announced that he would file nomination papers if a decision on his candidature does not come by 10 am and kept on tweeting that he would say "goodbye to the party" and that he "will not be forced to leave BJP by BJP itself".

BJP did not budge and it went ahead with the nomination of Hans and announced his candidature in the afternoon after which Udit Raj called a press conference where he said he has not taken any decision on quitting the party.

"I will not contest as an independent candidate. They (BJP) are forcing me to leave the party but I have not taken a decision on quitting. I will consult my supporters across the country...If I have faith in Modi and Shah, they should have told me that I would not be given a ticket. I have not resigned yet. Showing faith in Modi, we had merged our party with the BJP. Why am I being punished?" Udit Raj told reporters after the BJP announcement.

Meanwhile, candidates of all the three major parties have filed their nomination papers.

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(Published 23 April 2019, 02:22 IST)

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