New Delhi: The Bharaiya Janata Party leadership is putting pressure on its 91-year old patriarch to voluntarily drop out from seeking re-election from Gandhinagar for the seventh term in the Lok Sabha on the ground of advanced age. He has, however, not responded to the indirect approaches by various leaders, including Prime Minister Modi, nor has he sought the Gandhinagar ticket to his daughter Pratibha as speculated in the media, the party sources said.
They said BJP President Amit Shah is particularly anxious since he is toying with the idea of contesting the Gandhinagar seat if Advani withdraws since that will help the party in its “Mission 26” goal to retain all 26 seats it had won in 2014.
Shah is already a member of the Rajya Sabha and he may not venture out to contest the Lok Sabha election if Prime Minister Modi opts to contest from one of the Gujarat seats besides Varanasi he represents in the present House as last time also he had contested and won Vadodara seat as well.
The party headquarter is agog with reports that Amit Shah wants to drop about one-third of the sitting members to bring in the new faces and those who may not get the ticket include Bollywood actor Paresh Rawal elected from Ahmedabad East as also union minister of state (MoS) Haribhai Chaudhary, ex-MoS Mansukhbhai Vasava and Vithhal Radariya.
