Feel sad at how LK Advani treated by BJP: Mamata Banerjee

The BJP has also not given tickets to likes of Murli Manohar Joshi, Shanta Kumar, B C Khanduri, Kariya Munda, Kalraj Mishra, Bijoya Chakravarty - all many term MPs and over 80 years of age - besides Advani (91).

Mamata Banerjee. ANI Photo

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she felt sad for veteran BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani who was denied a ticket by his party to contest the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP denied a ticket to Advani and replaced him with party President Amit Shah in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat. The TMC supremo said she also felt bad for late Union Minister Ananth Kumar's wife Tejaswini, whose name did not figure in the BJP's candidate list. In a surprise move, the BJP fielded party's youth wing leader Tejaswi Surya from its bastion of Bangalore South from where the widow of union minister Ananth Kumar, a six-time MP from this prestigious Lok Sabha constituency, was denied the ticket. "I feel sad for Advaniji. He and Vajpayeeji were BJP seniors. But see how he has been left out. It is disgraceful that you cannot value seniority," IANS quoted Banerjee as saying. "You have to give (ticket) to young, women... but you cannot ignore some senior leaders," she said. "Advaniji is their mentor. But they have forgotten their past, now that they've grown big. But old is always gold. Everybody will age one day," she added. ALSO READ: LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi refused to contest LS polls, says Vijayvargiya Besides Advani, the saffron party also dropped its former president Murli Manohar Joshi as its candidate from Kanpur for the Lok Sabha polls. Joshi and Advani join the list of veterans, including Shanta Kumar, B C Khanduri and Kalraj Mishra, who have been denied the ticket by the BJP, apparently on the ground of their age and grooming younger leaders in their place. Advani and Joshi have also been kept out of the list of 40 leaders who will be campaigning for the first two phases of the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh. Joshi claimed in a letter that he was asked by the party to not contest the coming general election while BJP General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said Joshi and Advani refused to contest polls. While some veterans have come out to express their wish to not contest the poll- apparently on the prodding of the party's leadership- many others like Advani have refrained from doing so. However, no senior leader, who has been denied the ticket, has criticised the decision or attacked the leadership.