Motor mouths in the BJP continue to add to the troubles of the party high command.
BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj is back — this time with a bang — and has accused state party president Laxmikant Bajpai and MLC Hriday Narain Dixit of selling tickets for the Vidhan Parishad elections being held in March. He made these allegations on a TV channel debate.
Both Mr Bajpai and Mr Dixit have vehemently denied the allegation.
“I am in Varanasi today and I will try to apprise the Prime Minister about the baseless allegations being levelled against me by the MP at a time when parishad election process is on. I have already informed the party’s state in-charge Om Mathur about Sakshi’s allegations and demanded action against him. I will also send a detailed report to party chief Amit Shah in a day or two,” he said on phone.
State BJP spokesperson I.P. Singh, on the other hand, termed Sakshi as a “liability on the party”.
BJP MLA Hriday Narain Dixit, on the other hand, said, “Even my political rivals will not stoop so low. After nearly 50 years of political career, in which I have been a cabinet minister and a legislator five times, what I have are a few books, a few clothes and a dilapidated house.”
Apparently, the ongoing Vidhan Parishad elections through local bodies have not only magnified the infighting in the state BJP, but have also exposed its lack of preparedness for the Assembly elections to be held next year. Out of 36 council seats going to the polls, the BJP could manage to get candidates for just 21 seats and five of them later defected to SP after filing the nominations. The party has not even fielded a candidate in Varanasi, which is PM Narendra Modi’s constituency while the BJP nominee in Lucknow, which is Mr Rajnath Singh’s constituency, has walked over to the SP.
