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| BJP deciding its LS nominees today, Leela Karan’s name also on table | | |
ZAFAR CHOUDHARY
Jammu, March 13: The Bhartiya Janta Party Parliamentary Board is meeting in New Delhi tomorrow to finalise its nominees for the Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Parliamentary Board meeting to be attended by senior leader LK Advani and BJP president Rajnath Singh is being held in afternoon and names are likely to be announced by evening, sources said. Four senior party leaders from Jammu and Kashmir –state president Ashok Khajuria, Legislature Party leader Chaman Lal Gupta, Shamsher Singh Manhas and Ajay Singh Jamwal have rushed to New Delhi to attend the meeting.
BJP organizing secretary for North India, Manohar Lal told Early Times over phone from New Delhi that the Parliamentary Board is all set to finalise the nominees for Jammu and Kashmir by Saturday evening.
There are four Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir and BJP is reportedly to planning to contest on all. It may be recalled here that during the recent assembly elections the BJP had contested on 26 seats in Kashmir Valley despite the fact that party has no base in the Valley. In all BJP had contested on 64 seats in the state and won 11 –which is its highest success in assembly elections so far.
Buoyed by its success in the assembly elections, the BJP is keenly eyeing two Lok Sabha seats in Jammu division while it will participate for a token contest on other four seats –three in the Valley and one in Ladakh.
Interestingly, the leaders of Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti (SAYSS), which spearheaded the two-month long land row agitation in Jammu in summer of 2008, are being seen among the front runners for Lok Sabha elections on BJP ticket. SAYSS convener Leela Karan Sharma is reportedly pitching for Jammu-Poonch segment where BJP’s contender is Dr Nirmal Singh. Spokesman of the SAYSS, Dr Jatinder Singh is learnt to be lobbying for Kathua-Doda seat.
When contacted, Leela Karan Sharma told Early Times that he is not averse to contesting Lok Sabha elections of the BJP decides in his favour. “If people of Jammu and the BJP want me to contest elections, I will definitely do”, Sharma told Early Times. Reflecting that he is keen to contest elections, Leela Karan said, “it for BJP to take the call”.
When reached over phone in New Delhi, one of the four J&K BJP leaders said (pleading anonymity) that name of Leela Karan Sharma is under consideration of the BJP Parliamentary Board. “Yes his name is under discussion but nothing can be said at this stage”, he added.
It may mentioned here that during the days of agitation and immediately after that, when land issue was resolved, Leela Karan had vehemently declared that he had no intentions of participating in the electoral politics.
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