Udhampur/Jammu: BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir State vice-president Pawan Khajuria gave an ultimatum to his party to change the candidate from Udhampur east constituency within two days.
He held a meeting with hundreds of his supporters in Udhampur and said the candidature of former MLA R S Pathania announced by the party is not acceptable to the workers.
The BJP released its sixth list of 10 candidates including Pathania for the assembly polls on Sunday, taking the total number of candidates named by the party to 62.
Khujaria, who was hopeful of getting the ticket from the seat, told PTI, “Pathania’s candidature is not acceptable to the ground-level workers. He had indulged in anti-party activity during Lok Sabha elections and the workers have already submitted proof in the form of videos and photographs to the party leadership.”
The trouble for BJP over ticket distribution for assembly elections is far from over as there was also a protest by BJP workers in the Marh assembly segment over the naming of Surinder Bhagat instead of Balbir Lal who was supported by former minister Choudhary Sukhnandan.
He said the workers revolted against the party’s decision to give a mandate to Pathania against whom they were waiting for disciplinary action.
“We have 157 polling booths and pick up anyone, we will support him but not this person. We worked for decades together in the party but the workers are now feeling that their future is dark,” Khajuria, who earlier broke down while addressing the workers, said.
He urged the party leadership to change the mandate otherwise “the results will never be in our favour from this constituency”.
“We will wait till Wednesday and after that, we will meet again. We will take a decision and I will follow the workers even if it means fighting the elections as an independent,” he said.
At the meeting, District Development Council (DDC) member Parikshat Singh announced his resignation from the BJP and extended his support to Khajuria.
BJP faced a rebellion over the choice of candidates at over half a dozen constituencies across its stronghold of the Jammu region where the party had won 25 seats in 2014 assembly polls. The angry protesters even staged protests outside the party headquarters soon after the party started issuing the candidate list.
While it managed to cool the tempers at a few places, especially Mata Vaishno Devi assembly segment, nearly a dozen of its leaders including district president Samba resigned from the party with two of the rebels joining the electoral battle as independents from Ramban and Paddar-Nagseni constituency.
