BJP to decide candidate after Parliament session
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to have toed the Congress line in finalising the candidate for the city Lok Sabha seat. Party affairs incharge for Chandigarh Aarti Mehra, after the meeting of state election committee at the party office in Sector 33 on Sunday, told HT that the party would decide about the candidate for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat after the session of Parliament was over.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to have toed the Congress line in finalising the candidate for the city Lok Sabha seat. Party affairs incharge for Chandigarh Aarti Mehra, after the meeting of state election committee at the party office in Sector 33 on Sunday, told HT that the party would decide about the candidate for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat after the session of Parliament was over.
Earlier this month, the Congress had also announced that the party would decide about the Chandigarh candidate only after the session of Parliament.
"We are busy with the Parliament session. The panel finalised will be put up before the top leadership after the Parliament session," Mehra said.
The election committee, which met around 8 pm, authorised Mehra and Ajay Jamwal, party general secretary (organisation), Chandigarh, to decide about the panel of names to be submitted before the central leadership for their consideration for Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat.
She also said she would discuss the names with Jamwal before placing the panel before the central leadership.
Before Mehra attended election committee meeting, she and Ajay Jamwal met all ticket aspirants one by one and discussed about their candidature and sought their views.
Nineteen local leaders have approached the party for ticket, including three top leaders - local unit chief Sanjay Tandon, former MPs Satya Pal Jain and Harmohan Dhawan.
Mehra also denied that she had got any application from those living outside Chandigarh for party ticket, including Kirron Kher, Navjot Singh Sidhu and others whose names were doing rounds in local circles.
"If somebody residing outside Chandigarh (the names floating in local circles) applies, they also are party workers. They have right to apply for ticket. But I have not got any application so far," she said.Box
Aarti Mehra announced in the meeting that the Rs 11,000 taken from all the ticket aspirants be given back as party did not have the tradition of charging fee from ticket seekers. "However, none have taken back the money. All ticket seekers said, it was their donation to the party," Prem Kaushik, general secretary, BJP Chandigarh said adding that the idea behind charging fee was to keep non serious candidates at bay.
