For Sabarkantha, the BJP replaced Thakor with Shobhaben, wife of former Congress MLA Mahendra Singh Baraiya, who is now in the BJP. However, on Tuesday, 2,000 supporters of Thakor started protesting against Shobhaben and announced they would resign from the party and started distributing posters and pamphlets against her.
According to BJP sources, party worker Jitendra Singh wrote a letter stating that local workers had been ignored. “Shobhaben is not a party worker. Her husband, who came to the BJP from the Congress, is a party worker, then why has the party fielded his wife? There was demand to field local workers from this seat,” he wrote.
Thakor is BJP’s Aravalli district general secretary and vice-chairman of the district central cooperative bank, and was about to contest his first major national election till infighting marred his prospects. Rumours of him resigning from the BJP to join the Congress are also doing the rounds.
Speaking to ThePrint, he denied the rumour but said he was hurt. “I have not left the party yet, but many workers are disappointed. Some of my opponents raised a row over my caste and that is why I withdrew from the contest. However, the workers are unhappy with this decision,” he said.
Ranjan Bhatt, too, was compelled to withdraw her candidature after several district leaders opposed it, including the former national vice-president of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha, Jyoti Pandya. She had termed Bhatt as “inefficient” and was suspended from the party — but the allegations have continued.
This is happening in the home state of PM Modi and Union minister Amit Shah, where such open expressions of dissent are rare, but a similar trend is being seen in BJP units across states — signalling worker dissatisfaction due to lack of open selection process for Lok Sabha tickets and lack of a redressal mechanism.
The BJP has dropped 14 sitting MPs in Gujarat, which has 26 Lok Sabha seats. A senior state leader told ThePrint that “protests on a few seats are unprecedented and a new trend of protest has emerged in which pamphlets and posters are being used. Leaders are clearly airing their views against party decisions”.
So far, the BJP has announced candidates for 407 Lok Sabha seats across India and dropped 103 sitting MPs. In the 2019 election, the party had dropped 99 sitting MPs.
Speaking to ThePrint on condition of anonymity, a senior BJP leader said: “The party is facing rebellion on at least 100 seats across the country where tickets were denied to party workers to induct new faces. But we are hopeful of mollifying workers in the next two weeks and senior leaders have been asked to manage the crisis.”
The leader explained that “in the era of competitive politics, most workers want to contest the elections but the party can’t give a ticket to everyone. It is now the senior leaders’ work to handle the protests. While we have seen success in places, many other seats are suffering due to rebellion”.
He asserted that the party has to introduce new faces and is doing so in states where the BJP unit is strong. “The party can take the risk of denying tickets in a state like Gujarat. The second category of states are those where there is anti-incumbency against the sitting BJP MP, such as Delhi and Chhattisgarh. Many yardsticks are used to decide tickets and new faces have to be given a chance in every state”.
In Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP has dropped only nine sitting MPs, while in Madhya Pradesh (29 Lok Sabha seats) it has dropped eight. In Delhi (seven seats), the party has dropped six MPs, except for Manoj Tiwari. In Odisha (21 seats) and Bihar (40 seats), it has dropped four and three sitting MPs, respectively, while in Chhattisgarh (11 seats) it has dropped nine.
States where the BJP is facing discontent are Rajasthan, Bihar, Haryana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
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Rajasthan
In Rajasthan (25 seats), the BJP has dropped 10 sitting MPs while announcing candidates for 24 seats.
In the first list, it denied tickets to five sitting MPs, in the second it denied tickets to three sitting MPs, and in the third list, to two sitting MPs — Dausa’s Jaskaur Meena and Manoj Rajoria of Karauli-Dholpur.
MP Ramcharan Bohra, who had won the previous elections with a landslide, was dropped in favour of former state president Bhanwar Lal Sharma’s daughter Manju Sharma, and five-time Ganganagar MP Nihal Chandra Jain was removed to field Priyanka Balan, chairperson of the district nagar palika.
Similarly, MP Narendra Kumar was dropped from Jhunjhunu seat for Shubhkaran Choudhary.
BJP leaders Rahul Kaswan and Prahlad Gunjal rebelled against the party’s decision to deny them tickets from Churu and Kota, respectively, and joined the Congress. Kaswan subsequently got a ticket from Churu and Gunjal got a ticket to fight against Speaker Om Birla in Kota.
The party, earlier this month, managed to persuade Shergarh MLA Babu Singh Rathore, who had rebelled against Jodhpur Lok Sabha candidate Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and Chandrabhan Aakya, independent MLA who was planning to give a fight to state BJP president C.P. Joshi in Chittorgarh, to support the party.
However, tensions are simmering on five other seats in Rajasthan, said BJP sources.
Speaking to ThePrint, Gunjal said: “The party did not hear the voice of leaders. In Kota, one person is dictating politics. I did not come to the party to become a slave of one person. The BJP did not recognise my sacrifice of 40 years. I had joined it at a time when the party was weak in the Kota region and now the party’s priority has changed. It favours businessmen.”
Bihar
In Bihar, the BJP has announced 17 candidates while dropping three sitting MPs, including Union minister Ashwini Choubey from Buxar, the party’s lone Brahmin face in Bihar.
It also dropped Ajay Nishad from Muzaffarpur and Chhedi Paswan from Sasaram.
The Sheohar seat fell into the kitty of alliance partner JD(U), so MP Rama Devi was dropped while the others were dropped due to anti-incumbency and other factors, said BJP sources.
Ajay Nishad told ThePrint: “I don’t know why the party denied me a ticket. I defeated Raj Bhushan Nishad (BJP’s Muzaffarpur candidate) by four lakh votes in 2019. I inducted him into the party. He is not popular in the constituency but the party has chosen to give him a ticket. I do not understand.”
A BJP source said, “it was (Union minister) Nityanand Rai who had pushed the candidature of Raj Bhushan Nishad in Muzaffarpur”.
Choubey and his supporters have not protested like the cadre in Gujarat and Rajasthan, but his message on social media can be seen as voicing his displeasure.
“Truth and struggle have been an integral part of my life, and truth may be troubled but not defeated. All supporters are requested to remain patient,” he wrote in Hindi.
Haryana
In Haryana (10 seats), the BJP has dropped four MPs and replaced Nayab Singh Saini, the sitting MP from Kurukshetra who is now CM.
Sanjay Bhatia has been dropped from Karnal and former CM Manohar Lal Khattar is now fighting from this seat. In Sirsa, Sunita Duggal was dropped for Ashok Tanwar. From Ambala, the late Ratan Lal Kataria’s wife Banto has been fielded. From Hisar, the party has fielded Ranjit Chautala by replacing MP Brijendra Singh who switched over to the Congress, while industrialist Naveen Jindal will contest from Kurukshetra.
The son of former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal, Kuldeep Bishnoi had joined the BJP in 2022 with fanfare and was aspiring for a ticket from Hisar seat, but was overlooked in favour of Chautala.
Bishnoi posted a video on social media expressing his grief. He said that “workers of Haryana and Rajasthan are calling me. They are in grief but life is long and we should not be in grief. We have to work as common workers of the party to strengthen the PM’s hand”.
Karnataka & Andhra Pradesh
A major centre of rebellion is Karnataka, where the BJP has denied tickets to 10 sitting MPs and is facing rebellion on at least 10 seats.
Former state deputy CM K.S. Eshwarappa and former minister J.C. Madhuswamy have expressed displeasure over choice of tickets and protests have erupted in several districts. Former CM B.S. Yediyurappa is said to be fire-fighting in several districts.
Eshwarappa has accused the former CM of promoting his family and announced that he would contest against Yediyurappa’s son Raghavendra in Shivamogga.
Similarly, ticket aspirant Madhuswamy has opposed the candidature of V. Somanna in Tumkur, calling him an “outsider”.
Former minister K. Sudhakar is facing opposition from BJP MLA S.R Vishwanath in Chikkaballapur, while former minister and ticket aspirant M.P. Renukacharya is opposing the candidature of Gayatri Siddeshwara, wife of former MP G.M. Siddeshwara, in Devanagere.
In Andhra Pradesh, many leaders, including former state president Somu Veerraju, G.V.L. Narasimha Rao and state vice-president Vishnu Vardhan Reddy did not turn up for core committee meetings due to resentment over ticket distribution, according to BJP sources.
Narasimha was keen to fight from Vishakhapatnam while Reddy was keen to contest from Hindupur constituency, the sources said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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