Parvesh Verma tries arm-wrestling in BJP

Dissent within Bharatiya Janata Party over distribution of tickets for Delhi’s Lok Sabha seats surfaced on Friday, reports Avishek G Dastidar.

Dissent within Bharatiya Janata Party over distribution of tickets for Delhi’s Lok Sabha seats surfaced on Friday.

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In the afternoon, around 500 supporters of Parvesh Verma, son of a former Delhi Chief Minister, the late Sahib Singh Verma, held up traffic on Prithviraj Road. They protested outside BJP leader LK Advani’s residence against denial of a ticket to Verma.

Verma was keen on the West Delhi ticket. Party sources said he had turned down BJP National General Secretary Arun Jaitly’s offer of the South Delhi seat. “What he did not realise was that, post-delimitation, the South Delhi seat too has a strong Jat vote-bank, which he could have counted on,” said the source.

Verma stayed at home but kept up a belligerent note. “Those who have given the West Delhi ticket to someone else (veteran MLA Jagdish Mukhi) do not know the constituency like I do. Now if the discontented people of my area do not work in the party’s interest in this election, I cannot stop them.”

Former MP from East Delhi, Lal Behari Tewari, also aired his grievances against BJP all day, saying he felt ‘cheated’ at being denied a ticket.