Murali Manohar Joshi not invited at BJP National Executive meet

Joshi, a former party president, has neither been invited to the two-day convention of the BJP National Executive nor his pictures are to be seen on some of the posters and hoardings that feature both Vajpayee and Advani.

Senior BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi has not been invited to the two-day executive meet of the party being held in Allahabad.

File photo of senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi . The former party president has not been invited to the two-day national executive meet being held in Allahabad. (Vipin Kumar / HT Photo)

Not only has Joshi not been invited, his pictures are also not to be seen on the posters and hoardings that feature the other party veterans Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani.

BJP sources said Joshi, who represented this city in parliament for three terms and is a former party president, has been in the city for two days but no one from the party has paid him any attention.

Some party workers have put up posters expressing their protest against what they see as an insult of 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?” a leader who is close to Joshi told IANS.

He said the BJP has marginalised Joshi in his own ‘Karmabhoomi’ Allahabad where he studied, taught, and started his political career.

After being pushed out from Allahabd, Joshi contested the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi in 2009 and from Kanpur in 2014. The BJP fielded businessman Shyama Charan Gupta, who came from the Samajwadi Party, from Allahabad in 2014.

“Outsiders have now more say in BJP than the party leaders. The BJP itself is becoming ‘Congress-yukt’ (permeated with Congress), rather than ‘Congress-mukt’ (free of Congress),” they said.