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Journalism of Courage
Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee here today vetoed a proposal to field disgraced former BJP president Bangaru Laxman from the Jalore (reserved) Lok Sabha constituency of Rajasthan.
Sources disclosed that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and state BJP president Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi suggested Bangaru’s candidature at the Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting today, saying there was a great demand for his candidature from the area. The meeting, held at the PM’s residence, was chaired by party chief M.Venkaiah Naidu. Bangaru had lost to senior Congress leader Buta Singh in Jalore by over 35,000 votes in the last elections.
The proposal received support from Naidu, who, according to sources, said: ‘‘I had told him (Bangaru) that the party will consider giving him a ticket.’’
However, most party members, including Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, Health Minister Sushma Swaraj, Law Minister Arun Jaitley and general secretary Pramod Mahajan, opposed the idea. They argued that Bangaru has been tainted by a sandal and the move would rake up an unnecessary controversy during the elections. Besides, it would smack of double standards because the party had earlier refused a Lok Sabha ticket to former Union minister Dilip Singh Judeo, who had been exposed by The Indian Express in the cash-on-camera scam.
The sources said Agriculture Minister Rajnath Singh and Leader of the Opposition in Bihar Assembly Sushil Kumar Modi felt that such issues did not have much effect during the polls.
However, most leaders said that either both Bangaru and Judeo should get tickets or neither should. At this stage, Vajpayee intervened to say: ‘‘Dono ka (ticket) kyon kar do? Dono ka mat karo.’’
Finally, when the party released the list of 18 candidates, there was no mention of Jalore. The state leaders would obviously come out with a fresh recommendation when the CEC meets next on Saturday.
Raje, according to sources, also pleaded for Mahajan’s candidature from Jaipur. To this, Naidu responded saying: ‘‘We have already decided that Pramod (Mahajan), Sushma (Swaraj), Arun (Jaitley) and (Mukhtar Abbas) Naqvi will not contest.’’
Naidu is understood to have prevailed upon his senior colleagues not to jump into the fray and remain available for campaigning and poll management. Sushma’s name had come up for Kanpur constituency, while the names of Jaitley and Naqvi had been doing the rounds for Bhopal and Rampur respectively.
