Minister Bhagat, 5 Par Secy and 12 MLAs denied BJP ticket

     Raipur, October 22, 2008: Taking a tough stand against the party MLAs for their past activities the ruling BJP has denied tickets to Tribal Affairs Minister Ganesh Ram Bhagat, five Parliamentary Secretaries and 12 MLAs.

     ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com had only yesterday said Ganesh Ram Bhagat and 15 BJP MLAs are not getting tickets and that was confirmed after the first list of 78 names out of the 90 seats were announced by the central party leadership at New Delhi.

     About 40 per cent MLAs or the 18 party sitting legislatures have been denied tickets looking into their conducts and the local compulsion, a top party leader told ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com from New Delhi.

     BJP wanted to form the government again in Chhattisgarh instead of having a force of mere MLAs, because of which the surgery was conducted by the organisation, the central leader, who played an important role in selection of candidates, said.

     In the major surgery, five Parliamentary Secretaries Poonam Chandrakar, Tribikram Bhoi, Dev Lal Dugga, Sanjeev Shah and Ramshila Sahu were not given tickets.

      Since the party organisation was having strong reservation about the activities and behaviour of Tribal Affairs and Housing and Environment Minister Ganesh Ram Bhagat he was denied ticket. He is the only minister who has not been given ticket.

     Similarly 12 MLAs, Vijaynath Singh, sitting MLA of Lundra, Raj Sharan Bhagat (Jashpur), Chandulal Sahu (Rajim), Trilochan Patel (Saraipali), Inder Chopra (Dhamtari), Aghan Singh Thakur (Kanker), Lachhu Ram Kashyap (Chitrakoot), Balmukund Dewangan (Khertha), Preetam Sahu (Baloud), Lal Mahendra Singh Tekam (Dondi Lohara), Rajinder Pal Singh Bhatia (Khujji) and Vinod Khandekar (Dongargarh) have also been denied tickets.

     The BJP had already announced names of 78 candidates and if party sources are to be believed than there could be some more surprise stored in the rest 12 seats for which the process to finalise the names was taking time.