BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi will not be contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The development comes just days after the name of LK Advani, another old warhorse of the saffron party, was missing from the candidate list.
In a statement to CNN-News18, Joshi said he was asked by party general secretary Ramlal to not contest the elections. A message doing the rounds on social media, reportedly by Joshi to the voters of Kanpur, also mentioned that he had been asked to stay out of the poll fray.
In the 2014 election, Joshi had vacated his Varanasi seat for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then won Kanpur by a record margin, securing 57% of the votes.
Reacting to the news, BJP's Siddharth Nath Singh said, "We have spoken to our 'margdarshak', we have always been grateful to them for building this party... people who are crying foul should ask why Mulayam Singh Yadav was denied a ticket from his seat?"
However, the Opposition was quick to take a swipe at the BJP, with Aam Aadmi Party chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal saying the move was an insult to Hindu culture. Sharad Yadav of the Lok Jantrik Dal said veterans were being denied tickets as the BJP top brass wanted to run the party in a "wrong way".
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