The Hindu : Bharatpur MP raises banner of revolt

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 09, 2003

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Bharatpur MP raises banner of revolt

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR NOV. 8. The Bharatpur MP and scion of the royal family, Vishvendra Singh, has raised the banner of revolt in the Bharatiya Janata Party by submitting his resignation from the Lok Sabha to the Prime Minister. He has faxed a resignation to Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee while handing over a copy of it to the BJP national treasurer, Ramdas Agarwal, to be forwarded to the BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu.

Mr. Singh, who in 1991 had done the resigning act as the Janata Dal member in the Lok Sabha protesting over the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations by the V.P.Singh Government, this time is said to be bitter over the distribution of the BJP tickets in his area. His contention is that the tickets in Bharatpur area have been distributed by the party higher ups without taking into account the contribution of the workers.

The BJP circles here are watching his moves with some anxiety as his wife and former BJP MP, Divya Singh, had only recently joined the Indian National Lok Dal of the Haryana Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala. However Mr. Singh has reiterated his plans to remain in the BJP.

Political observers here see this move by Mr. Singh, who started his career as a Congressman a decade and a half back, as an attempt to pressurise the party leadership to allocate more tickets to his supporters. As such he has never been comfortable with the idea of Vasundhararaje Scindia becoming the president of the Rajasthan unit of the BJP and has been the first to oppose it.

Since the first list of 93 party candidates for the coming Assembly elections was announced in Delhi earlier this week, the voice of dissent is getting louder by the day with the workers even taking to the streets to protest against the choice of the nominees.

The supporters of those who have been denied the party ticket are staging demonstrations on a regular basis in front of the party's State headquarter on the Sardar Patel Marg here while three of the party functionaries in districts have quit over the alleged neglect of the Brahmins. Friday witnessed over a dozen demonstrations in various districts against the newly announced BJP nominees.

The BJP office is now guarded by over two dozen policemen though the party leadership has asked them to stay out from the compound. The vice president of the Rajasthan unit, Onkar Singh Lakhawat, has termed the protests as "insignificant'' going by the "enormity'' of the task of selection of candidates and the large number of aspirants. Two former Ministers, Vidya Pathak in Jaipur and Harikumar Audichya in Kota, have announced their decision to fight as Independents. Another senior leader and former Minister, Harlal Singh Kharra, too has declared his decision to fight as an independent if the party denies him ticket from Sri Madhopur in Sikar district.

There are protests over denial of ticket to the Mahila Morcha leader Kiran Maheshwari from Udaipur. The seat has been given to the Leader of the Opposition in the outgoing Assembly, Gulab Chand Kataria, who had sought a shift from his sitting constituency, Bari Sadhadi. The fielding of Navin Pilania, son of the Jat Mahasabha leader, G.P. Pilania, from Amber in Jaipur district is also being resented by the workers.

Dr. Pathak, who represented Sanganer seat in the Jaipur neighbourhood many times in the past, called media persons to her residence the other day to announce her decision to fight against Ghanshyam Tiwari, senior party leader, who has been given the ticket from this seat.

Those who have quit the organisational posts protesting against the neglect of their castemen are Rajendra Sharma, the president of the BJP's Jhunjhunu unit, Vijayshankar Upadhyaya, general secretary of Sawai Madhopur unit and Bhanwar Singh Palada, vice president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Rajasthan.

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