BJP Denies Udit Raj North West Delhi Ticket, Fields Hans Raj Hans

Raj had said that he will resign from BJP if denied a ticket and may contest on his own from North West Delhi seat.

File image of Udit Raj. 

(Photo: IANS)

Hours after expressing his displeasure with the BJP for sidelining him, the party denied Dalit MP Udit Raj the North West Delhi Lok Sabha ticket and decided to field singer Hans Raj Hans.

Raj had early on Tuesday, 23 April, said that he will resign from the party if denied the and may contest independently from the parliamentary seat.

Raj, who is sitting MP from North West Delhi, had said that he will wait for some time for a reply from the party and then file his nomination as an Independent candidate from the seat at 10 am. The time, it seems, has run out for Raj.

"I am still hopeful that I will file nomination from my constituency and BJP where I have worked hard and proved my metal. I hope I will not be forced to leave BJP by BJP itself," Raj had tweeted.

Raj had merged his Indian Justice Party with the BJP in February 2014, just before the general elections. He was one of the seven BJP parliamentarians who represented the party's landslide victory in Delhi.

At midnight on Monday, Raj, accompanied by dozens of his supporters, had reached the Delhi BJP office on Pant Marg, where they had created a ruckus.

Hans was also present at the office along with other party leaders.

Raj had said on Monday that he had tried to talk to BJP chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi about his ticket but did not get any response.

Senior party leaders, including Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh had asked him to wait, he had claimed.

No More a ‘Chowkidar’

Meanwhile, Raj has changed his name on Twitter, dropping the prefix ‘Chowkidar’ – a moniker adopted by most BJP leaders as part of the party’s Lok Sabha election campaign.

Udit Raj removed the prefix ‘chowkidar’ from his name on Twitter following BJP’s snub.(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

‘Gandhi, Kejriwal Had Warned Me’

In an interview to NDTV, Raj had said: "I am not leaving the party, the party seems to have left me."

”(Aam Aadmi Party chief) Arvind Kejriwal called me yesterday, I called him today. He had warned me four months ago I won’t get a ticket, so we were discussing about it. Rahul Gandhi also met me in Parliament. He told me you’re in the wrong party, leave it. So I was just remembering those days when they all had warned me. But I was honest and upright and believed too much in the party then.”

Udit Raj to NDTV

"Is being a best performer a negative point?” the leader was quoted as saying by the news channel.

(With inputs from PTI, NDTV)