BJP tells me not to contest, says Joshi

Former BJP President Murli Manohar Joshi has revealed that he will not contest the Lok Sabha election as he had been denied a party ticket.

Joshi, 85, made the announcement in an open letter to the people of Kanpur, from where he was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014.

"Dear people of Kanpur, General Secretary of the BJP Ram Lal conveyed to me (on Monday) that I should not contest the ensuing parliamentary election from Kanpur (or anywhere)," he said.

A prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Joshi had vacated the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in 2014 to enable Narendra Modi, the party's Prime Ministerial candidate to contest from there, and shifted to Kanpur.

Hailing from Uttarakhand, Joshi studied in Allahabad University where one of his teachers was Rajendra Singh, who later became the RSS chief.

After teaching physics at Allahabad University, Joshi took to politics. He was the BJP President between 1991 and 1993.

A former central Minister, Joshi was awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award in 2017.

The BJP earlier denied a ticket to veteran Lal Krishna Advani and replaced him with party President Amit Shah in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat.

Advani represented Gandhinagar six time since 1991. Late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was also elected from Gandhinagar once.

--IANS

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