New Delhi: Murli Manohar Joshi, a Bharatiya Janata Party veteran and a former party president, has been told by the party leadership that he will not be contesting the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. Dr Joshi is a sitting MP from Kanpur.
However, the “Margda-rshak Mandal” is perhaps the only group within the BJP that never held a single meeting since its inception.
Mr Advani had contested from Gujarat’s Gandhinagar in 2014, a seat that has gone to party president Amit Shah.
Interestingly, Dr Joshi’s name is also missing from the list of BJP’s campaigners for UP polls. Mr Advani’s name also did not appear in the party’s campaigners list in 2014, and now.
Though the party leadership had claimed that the age bar is only for holding a post either in the organisation or the government, it has been implemented for ticket selection.
Mr Advani at 91 and Dr Joshi at 85 have crossed the BJP’s age bar of 75 and join the list of other leaders who have been benched - B.C. Khandu-ri, B.S. Koshiyari, Kar-iya Munda, Kalraj Mish-ra, Bijoya Chakravarty and Shanta Kumar.
Taking a dig at the BJP leadership over the issue, AAP chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, “The way Modiji has insulted Advaniji and Murli Manohar Joshiji - is completely against Hindu traditions... Hind-uism teaches us to respe-ct our elders. The elders who built the home were thrown out. One who can’t be loyal to his elders, who will he be loyal to?”
