Daijiworld Media Network
New Delhi, Jun 6: BJP is likely to relax the age rule set for candidates to contest elections to facilitate veteran party leaders L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in 2019.
According to a report in Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently met Advani at his home at Prithviraj Road in Delhi. BJP President Amit Shah too has met the 90-year-old leader with the proposal.
The sudden change in BJP’s policy could be keeping the winnability factor on fore than the age of the candidates. The developments correspond to some allies leaving the NDA ahead of elections. Even Shiv Sena and JD(U) in Bihar have voiced out their uneasiness regarding the coalition.
It is important to note that even in the Karnataka state Assembly elections that happened in May 2018, the age bar was relaxed for BJP's CM candidate B S Yeddyurappa, giving importance to winnability.
BJP in its four-year rule has been blamed for sidelining the party veterans. Though Advani won the last Lok Sabha elections from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, he and Murli Manohar Joshi were left out from the Parliamentary Board which is BJP’s highest decision-making body.
BJP party president Amit Shah started the Marg Darshak Mandal, which included the party veterans but not one meeting has been held since its inception.
BJP’s focus on winnability could have also stemmed out after the opposition parties put up a show of strength during Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy’s oath ceremony, hinting that a nation-wide alliance against the NDA could be in the pipeline.