Akhilesh hits on BJP for denying tickets to MPs

BJP on Wednesday hit back at Samajwadi Party, over the question of denying tickets to some sitting Members of Parliament.

Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said that by not giving tickets to sitting MPs, the BJP had admitted that they have failed and the formula should be applied on the 'team captain' too. Yadav's remarks come in the wake of the BJP announcing on Tuesday that it will drop all sitting 10 MPs in Chhattisgarh and replace them with new faces.

The announcement underscores the BJP's bid to wrest its lost territory back from the Congress, which handed it a massive defeat in the assembly polls last year.

The Congress had won 68 seats, reducing the tally of the BJP, which was in power in the state for 15 years, to a mere 15. The difference in the vote share of the two parties was a huge 10 per cent.The BJP is also considering not fielding any family member of these sitting MPs, sources said. If the party indeed adopts this criterion, the likely candidature of former chief minister Raman Singh, whose son Abhishek Singh is a sitting Member of Parliament, will also be in question.

The party also denied tickets in Arunachal Pradesh after which two ministers and six MLAs joined the National Peoples' Party (NPP) of Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma ahead of the assembly election next month.