New Delhi: Left in the cold, Parvesh Verma supporters take protest to Advani house; say won’t work for BJP in coming elections

Fissures within the Bharatiya Janata Party came out on the Capital’s streets on Friday, less than 24 hours after the party announced its seven Lok Sabha candidates for Delhi.

Beaten by Jagdish Mukhi for the West Delhi seat, considered by many as his for the taking, late Delhi CM Sahib Singh’s son Pervesh Verma today said he now feels “cheated”. As a show of support, Rithala MLA Kulwant Rana and his Mundka counterpart Manoj Shokeen led a group of supporters to protest against the party’s decision outside Lal Krishna Advani’s Prithviraj Road residence on Friday afternoon.

“It is the party’s decision to give ticket to the candidate it considers most winnable,” Parvesh Verma, who did not take part in the protest, said. “But having worked for the constituency for the last two years, I do feel let down. The party has completely ignored my father’s contribution in building a vote bank for BJP in Delhi’s rural areas.”

An MP from what was then the Outer Delhi constituency, Sahib Singh was considered among the BJP’s strongest leaders in Delhi’s rural pockets.

Claiming that he had the RSS’s backing “till even two days ago”, Verma junior sees a conspiracy in keeping him out of the race for the Lok Sabha. “Why did Arun Jaitley have to drive down to (BJP president) Rajnath Singh’s residence on Thursday?” he asked. “What was the deal struck between them?”

His supporters’ meeting with Advani, though, lasted less than 10 minutes — the party’s prime ministerial candidate reportedly distanced himself from the issue. “He told us it was Rajnath Singh’s decision, not his,” MLA Shokeen told Newsline. “He also suggested that since the list is already out we should not react now.”

Sahib Singh’s brother Ajit Singh also accompanied the two MLAs in their protest.

Meanwhile, Verma’s supporters made it clear that they would not work for the party in the upcoming elections. “We have lost the right to approach the rural population seeking votes for the BJP,” Shokeen said. “The party has betrayed the trust of rural voters by ignoring Parvesh Verma.”

Verma, too, said the same: “This decision will affect the party’s fortunes in western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. How can the party succumb to blackmailing by one Vijay Goel?”

Verma’s supporters — some drawn even from neighbouring areas of western UP, Rajasthan and Haryana — carried on with their protest outside Advani’s residence for about half-an-hour, taking the security personnel by surprise.