The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was still recovering from last week’s jolts of resignations of at least 10 MLAs in U.P., including three ministers, Allahabad MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi gave it another shock on Tuesday after she publicly offered to give up her Lok Sabha membership if the party fields her son from Lucknow Cantonment seat in the upcoming State Assembly Elections.
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Ms. Joshi, who met party’s U.P. in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan in Delhi, said her son had been active in the Assembly constituency and should get the party ticket. She, however, denied that she was lobbying for him.
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Speaking to mediapersons, she said, “He (son Mayank Joshi) has been working since 2009 and has applied for it (a ticket from Lucknow Cantt), rightfully. But if the party has decided to give the ticket to only one person per family, I will resign from my present LS seat if Mayank gets a ticket.”
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Ms. Joshi’s remarks come amid rumours of her quitting the party before the State elections and are seen as a pressure tactic to secure a ticket for her son.
She, however, said she was not leaving the party. “I wrote this proposal to BJP president J.P. Nadda and will always continue working for BJP anyway. Party can choose to accept or not accept my proposal. I had already declared that I will not contest elections, many years ago.”
The Allahabad MP said she had met Mr. Pradhan to discuss political issues of Allahabad zone and her son’s ticket was not on agenda.
There are speculations that if the BJP denies ticket to a Brahmin leader’s (Ms. Joshi’s) son after it has already fielded Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s son Pankaj Singh (a Rajput or Thakur) from Noida, it could revive the debate of Thakurs vs Brahmins in U.P.
When asked about Pankaj Singh’s ticket, she said he deserved it and that she was not complaining about it. While she said that she respected the party’s rule of one ticket per family, Ms. Joshi did point out that many in the BJP had gotten it.
'Respect party rule'
“I do respect the party’s decision of one ticket per family even though many have gotten it,” she said, speaking to TV news channel News24.
The party, which has so far comfortably enjoyed the support of both the communities in U.P., started facing the allegations of neglecting Brahmins ever since Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister in 2017. In recent years, the BJP has had to reach out to several Brahmin leaders in order to placate the community, that has about 12% vote share in the State.
Mayank Joshi has reportedly been pushing hard to get the party ticket from the seat which her mother had won in 2017 but vacated in 2019 after she was elected to the Lok Sabha from Allahabad. BJP’s Suresh Chandra Tiwari is the incumbent MLA from the constituency after winning it in 2019 bypolls.
Daughter of former U.P. CM and Congress veteran Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, Ms. Joshi switched over to the saffron party after leaving the Congress in October 2016.
She was the mayor of Allahabad from 1995 to 2000. Later in 2012, she became an MLA from Lucknow Cantt on a Congress ticket. She then contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate from Lucknow constituency but lost to BJP’s Rajnath Singh.
