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Patna, (Bihar Times): Former Union minister and cine-star Bihari Babu Shatrughan Sinha has been denied the party ticket for the Rajya Sabha seat. He has been replaced by another former Union minister, C P Thakur.
This was announced by the party in New Delhi on Tuesday after a marathon meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s central election committee here. Fourteen names were cleared for the Rajya Sabha elections from nine States.
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The denial of Shatru’s ticket from the BJP suggests that everything is not hunky-dory in the party. Inter alia, the two-time MP, once considered as the biggest crowd-puller of the party in Bihar, perhaps paid the price for sounding too much Maharashtrian. His recent statement applauding the Thackerays landed the party in a quandary.
Prominent journalists Prabhu Chawla and M J Akbar were not accommodated; nor did the former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, who was hopeful of getting the ticket. Akbar, in particular, has fallen between the two stools. He lost the post of editorship of Asian Age last week on the grounds that he is to get the Rajya Sabha ticket from the BJP. He failed to get the ticket. The only journalist who has made it to the BJP’s list is the sitting MP Balbir Punj, who has been accommodated for the lone seat from Orissa.
Some surplus BJP votes in Bihar could go to a Lok Jan Shakti Party nominee, Ranjan Yadav, friend-turn-rival of Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, Lalu Prasad.
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