Rita in BJP? Buzz refuses to die down

LUCKNOW: Despite denials from both Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the buzz about UP Congress lawmaker Rita Bahuguna Joshi joining the BJP ahead of the 2017 UP polls refuses to die down.

Senior Congress leaders, including three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and UPCC chief Raj Babbar, have denied speculations on the subject.

Still the political grapevine is abuzz that Joshi, daughter of former UP chief minister Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna may well join the BJP.

Congress sources, however, admit that Joshi was feeling sidelined in the UP Congress unit, which she headed from 2007 to 2012.

Joshi’s brother and former Uttarakhand chief minister Vijay Bahuguna has already joined the BJP. Bahuguna – who along with his loyalist MLAs had walked out

This is purely media creation. If any such offer is placed for my consideration, I would be the first one to confirm it KESHAV PRASAD MAURYA, UP BJP chief

of the party leaving the Harish Rawat government facing some anxious moments in the hill state – too has denied reports. The BJP too is on a denial mode. “As of now, there is no such proposal before me about her,” UP BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya said. He also denied reports that Joshi was trying to bargain her entry with tickets for herself and her son.

“This is purely media creation. If any such offer is placed for my consideration, I would be the first one to confirm it,” Maurya said.

Rita Joshi had won the 2012 elections by wresting the Lucknow cantonment assembly segment from the BJP. Joshi belongs to the hills and the cantonment assembly segment has several voters from the hills. This time however the state’s ruling Samajwadi Party has announced that it would field party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter in law Aparna Yadav from the cantonment assembly seat. Aparna too has a hill connection and this could queer up the contest for the assembly segment, which despite Rita’s win, is largely considered to be a BJP bastion.

“It’s a BJP canard. There is absolutely no truth in these reports at all,” Congress spokesman Devendra Pratap Singh was heard stating at a news channel debate on Wednesday.

UPCC vice chairman communications department Veerendra Madan said Joshi was not leaving the party. “She is ill and to the best of my knowledge she was not joining any other party,” he said.