Miffed over seat snub, Atal nephew to quit BJP?

BHOPAL: After Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece

Karuna Shukla

in 2013, will it be his nephew Anoop Mishra this time who quits BJP ahead of Lok Sabha polls? On Monday, there was talk that Mishra, a minister in the recently ousted Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet in MP, may leave BJP after he was denied a ticket from Morena LS seat. Five-time MP Ashok Argal — the Morena mayor — could also quit BJP ahead of the polls.


Congress sources said some BJP leaders are in touch with CM Kamal Nath and the Congress central command.

Mishra was elected from Morena in 2014, but this time the BJP ticket has gone to Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar. Despite the Modi wave in 2014, Tomar had won

Gwalior

by only 29,000 votes. Fearing a defeat, BJP moved him to Morena, but ended up angering party leaders in the Gwalior-Chambal division. When TOI contacted Anoop Mishra, his phone was switched off.

Argal won the Morena seat four straight times from 1996 to 2004. Following delimitation, Bhind became an SCreserved seat and Argal was moved from Morena. He won Bhind in 2009 but, in 2014, he was dropped as a candidate. This time, BJP has fielded Sandhya Rai in Bhind.