BJP’s sitting MPs yet to campaign for party’s new candidates

Kashiram Rana,after putting in years of service to the BJP,finds himself sidelined. Asked whether he is campaigning for the party’s new candidate from Surat,he said,“The party has not approached me,and I don’t think they will approach me.”

Rana was the Union Minister of Textiles for five years and was later suspended from the party for anti-party activities. Another BJP parliamentarian Jayaben Thakkar could not be seen when the party’s Vadodara constituency candidate Bal Krishna Shukla filed his nomination. She is yet to plunge into the campaign process for Shukla. “I was campaigning for Vinod Khanna in Pathankot. I have also participated in election rallies in Uttarakhand,” said Thakkar.

Some of these MPs who have been quite vocal,have not been in the news this time. Some,in fact,have been asked to work in the background.

Bhupendrasinh Solanki,sitting MP from Panchmahal,has been assigned the duty to overlook the strategy in Valsad. He has not been campaigning for the new BJP candidate from Panchmahal,Prabhatsinh Chauhan.

In the 2004 elections,Shubhangini Devi Gaekwad,a member of the Vadodara royal family,had fought the elections on a BJP ticket from Kheda. Though the BJP says she supports the party,people are yet to see her in the campaign trail. She is not in town for the last one week.

Her secretary told Newsline that he doesn’t know when she will be back in Vadodara.

The Congress,on the other hand,has not made great changes in alloting tickets for the Lok Sabha elections. The party has repeated most of its candidates or given tickets to the candidate’s family members.

Virji Thummar,the Congress MP from Amreli has lost the ticket to his wife Nilaben. Thummar is now campaigning for his wife. Harisinh Chavla,the party’s sitting MP from Banaskantha was changed,as post-delimitation,his seat has been converted into a tribal reserve.