UP Polls: BJP's Rita Joshi waiting for party's nod on son's ticket

New Delhi: Rita Bahuguna Joshi, senior BJP leader and Lok Sabha MP from Allahabad, is waiting for BJP president JP Nadda's response to her letter seeking a party ticket for her son in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections, news agency Asian News International learned from sources close to her. They said that further decisions would be based on Nadda's response.

On Tuesday, Joshi had sought in her letter to Nadda for her son a ticket to contest from Lucknow Cantt. Joshi had told reporters that her son Mayank has been working for BJP since 2009, and he deserves a ticket. If the party allows a single ticket for a family, she is ready to resign her LS seat for her son to get it, she said. She had added that she will always be working for BJP, whether her proposal is accepted or not. She had already declared that she would not contest in any more elections, she said.

However, rumours are out that she has met the Samajwadi Party and others. But she denied those and told ANI that she had been in Delhi for seven days and met no other parties so far and was not intending to.

Joshi had joined BJP in 2016, ahead of the 2017 UP elections, after 24 years of service in Congress. In the 2017 polls, she had won with a 33,798 votes' margin.

UP elections for 403 constituencies are charted into seven phases; February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7. The counting will be on March 10.