Once one of the three pillars of the BJP along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi is now nowhere on the party’s leadership spectrum at the National Executive meeting in Allahabad.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s name may be doing the rounds as the chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh, but it is Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi who has emerged as the BJP “poster boy”, with hundreds of his hoardings dotting the city where the party is holding its two-day National Executive conclave.
Alongside Varun Gandhi’s hoardings and posters of varying sizes in the city are those of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP president Amit Shah.
Joshi, a former party president, has neither been invited to the two-day convention of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National Executive nor are his pictures to be seen on the posters and hoardings that feature both Vajpayee and Advani.
The BJP sources said Joshi, who represented this city in parliament for three terms, has been in Allahabad for two days, but no one from the party has paid him any attention.
The party leaders have gathered in Allahabad to brainstorm the strategy for the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, which are due next year. The National Executive meet will be attended by Modi, Shah and other top brass of the party.
Some party workers have put up posters expressing their protest against what they see as an insult to a senior leader.
“What is it if not an insult to Joshi ji? He is deliberately being belittled. Why is he being treated like this?” asked a leader close to Joshi.
He said the BJP has marginalised Joshi in his own ‘Karmabhoomi’ of Allahabad, where he studied, taught, and started his political career.
(With inputs from IANS)
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