‘BJP two-man army, Advani badly treated’

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 23

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Almost as if he expected to be fielded by the BJP despite a running feud with the current leadership represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah, actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, the Patna Sahib MP who was today replaced by Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from the constituency for the upcoming polls, hit back, calling it “a two-man Army” and accusing them of not treating its veterans well.

Sinha, in a series of tweets, said while he was capable of answering back on what has been done to him, the treatment meted out to veteran LK Advani, who has been dropped from Gandhinagar in favour of Shah, and other senior leaders such as Yashwant Sinha, Murli Manohar Joshi and Arun Shourie, “smacked of ingratitude”.

Without naming either Modi or Shah, Sinha said Advani had been replaced by a man who was also the party president (Shah) but whose image or personality was “neither a match nor a patch on him”. 

“This has been done deliberately and intentionally and has not gone down well with the people of the country,” Sinha warned. Calling Advani a “respected friend, philosopher, guide, father figure and ultimate leader of the party”, Sinha said “no one can approve of such treatment to a father figure”.

The BJP today repeated most of its sitting MPs in Bihar except Sinha and senior leader Shahnawaz Hussain. The Bhagalpur constituency he unsuccessfully contested last time has been given to ally JD(U).

While speculation is that he may be fielded from Araria, sources say the party does not want to take chances, especially when Hussain lost Bhagalpur even at the height of the “Modi wave”. So far as Ravi Shankar Prasad and his candidature from Patna Sahib is concerned, BJP leaders say the seat may be their traditional stronghold but serious caste considerations have gone into choosing him for the seat earlier represented by Sinha.

Like Sinha, Prasad is a “Kayasth” by caste and the seat has a sizeable number of voters from the community. Given that Sinha could be fielded from the seat by perhaps the Congress, the BJP has fielded an important leader to take him on.