Won’t allow candidates to change seats: Javadekar
ASSEMBLY POLLS BJP leader clears the air amid clamour for party tickets JAIPUR:
Amid the clamour for tickets and search for safe seats for the assembly elections, Rajasthan election incharge and Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday said that candidates “will not be allowed to change seats and winnability is the only factor in deciding tickets”.
Addressing a press conference at the new BJP media centre here, Javadekar said: “No one will be allowed to change seats. Candidates will be changed.” There were speculations that several MLAs and ministers were trying to change their seats.
On children of BJP leaders seeking tickets, the Union minister for human resource development said any party worker who has the greatest chance of winning will be given the party ticket. There was no formula on whether the BJP would allow MPs to contest polls, Javadekar said and added: “A decision will be taken on each seat taking into consideration the factors prevailing there... Winnability will be the only factor in deciding tickets.”
He said last week BJP leaders took feedback from 12,000 workers from 200 assembly seats over six days. “We listened to our workers and took their suggestions on names of candidates along with other things. This exercise cannot happen in the Congress because it is the party of one family, while the BJP is a party that is one family.”
He said in the past four or five years, politics has changed and the BJP’s footprint in the country increased steadily while that of the Congress shrunk. “This happened because votebank politics ended. People rejected the politics of one family and have started voting for development,” hesaid. Hedeniedstatementsby former chief minster Ashok Gehlot that there was anger against chief minister Vasundhara Raje and the BJP was focusing on the lotus symbol instead of the candidate. “We have already declared that Raje is the party’s chief ministerial candidate. There is no confusion in the BJP. For us, the party is bigger than the individual so obviously we will focus on the party symbol.”
Targeting the Congress, he said it is leaderless and issueless. “They can’t say who is their CM face in Rajasthan and now P Chidambaram has said that they also don’t have a PM face.”
Javadekar said state Congress chief Sachin Pilot was Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s choice for chief minister of Rajasthan but he does not have the courage to announce it officially.
Javadekar said the BJP is fighting the assembly and general elections on the issue of development. “We challenge the Congress to debate on development by comparing the work under the Congress and BJP governments.”
The Congress, he said, was once a mainstream party but it has now become peripheral. “The Congress’s face has changed that’s why people have forsaken it.”
“They oppose EVMs when they lose but don’t complain when they win. They launched Aadhaar and GST we are giving them the credit but now they call it Gabbar Singh Tax. National Register of Citizens (NRC) was started by (late prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi but now the Congress is opposing it,” he said.
Reacting to Javadekar’s statements, Congress spokesperson Archana Sharma said that the BJP was making new announcements and changing its strategy daily.
“They are saying that candidates won’t be allowed to change seats and unpopular leaders will be denied tickets. The BJP should understand that the people are disillusioned and whether they change their faces or their strategy, people have made up their minds and their exit is final,” she said.