BJP ticket aspirants get angry over not getting ticket

Palanpur, Nov 20 (UNI) Aspirants, who had been queuing at the local BJP office to get a ticket for next month's Gujarat Assembly Elections from this constituency, were furious today after they learnt that all of them were sidelined for an outsider -- a former civil servant.

When the news of the resignation of a government servant, Govindbhai Prajapati, spread at a 'Sneh Milan', organised by the BJP at Maheshwari hall here, all the ticket aspirants frowned at the news and looked impatient. Mr Prajapati could be the likely candidate to contest from Palanpur constituency.

A former city BJP president Bharat Patel was heard saying that an outsider would now contest from this constituency.

''We are here fielding since the last election and a rank outsider, not even the 12th man, has been given to bat,'' he said.

Somabhai Patel, a ticket aspirant, said no outsider can win from this constituency.

Girsh Jaganiya, former director of Dantiwada campus of Gujarat Agricultural University and an aspirant of the BJP ticket, turned pessimist.

''If the news is genuine, it will discourage the morale of the ordinary BJP worker. We cannot do much,'' he said.

Scores of ticket aspirants and their supporters could not contain themselves in reacting to this news. Top leaders, including president of the district unit of the party Mahesh Dave and vice president Haribhai Chaudhari and a few others preferred silence.

Meanwhile, talking to UNI, Mr Prajapati said, ''I have resigned from my erstwhile position in the Gujarat Subordinate Services Selection Board on the 14th of this month. I was Deputy Engineer in the PWD, Palanpur.'' He declined to say anything about his relationship with the Chief Minister Narendra Modi only mentioning that he was born in 1952 in Vadanagar, the same place as the Chief Minister.

UNI