Murli Manohar Joshi, once a mortal enemy of the liberal cabal, becomes ‘Gurudev’ overnight

Yesterday, Bharatiya Janata Party released another list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. According to the list, BJP has fielded UP cabinet minister Satyadev Pachauri from the Kanpur seat replacing veteran leader and former union minister Murli Manohar Joshi. The veteran leader is the current MP from Kanpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. 

Afterwards, Murli Manohar Joshi addressed the voters through a letter, where he wrote, “Dear voters of Kanpur, Shri Ramlal General Secretary (Org), Bharatiya Janata Party conveyed to me today that I should not contest the ensuing parliamentary election from Kanpur and elsewhere.”

However, what can be termed as bizarre and ironic, many leaders of the so-called liberal brigade are lashing out against the saffron party for this. Former union minister Manish Tiwari took to Twitter and urged that Joshi has not been fielded because of his report on the GDP growth. “So much for chest thumping,” he said tagging the report published by veteran BJP leader.

“After Advani, it’s MM Joshi’s turn to join the darshak Mandal from the Margdarshak Mandal to which Modi Ji had consigned him,” tweeted lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan. 

Another ‘epitome of hypocrisy’, Omar Abdullah wrote, “Looking at how the BJP has treated senior leaders like Advani Sb, Joshi Sb & Sinha Sb I can safely say so called family run parties treat their senior leaders with far more respect”.

But the most shocking tweet came from former Rajya Sabha MP of Congress party Shahid Siddiqui, where he wrote, “I have know Gurudev MM Joshi for the last 40 yrs, since Emergency days. Despite our differences I always found him to be a highly educated &articulate person. Always called him Gurudev & respect him as an elder brother,but people like you won’t understand these human relations”.

Not to forget that when Murli Manohar Joshi was the HRD minister in the Vajpayee government, the liberal cabal went after him and called Joshi the same things, i.e. fascist and Nazi, what they are calling current BJP leaders. Now that the seasoned politician has taken voluntary retirement, the liberal brigade is projecting it as slight against a senior leader.

Moreover, the well-known dynasts are calling BJP disrespectful against its seniors and erstwhile critics who saw Joshi as a fascist are calling him ‘Gurudev’. It seems that these bigots have forgotten how the Congress party had treated Sitaram Kesari, a backward leader and former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao. After the electoral defeat of 1998, Sitaram Kesari was unceremoniously removed from the post of Congress President to make way for Sonia Gandhi. Later, Congress party removed Kesri, along with other members of the Working Committee including Tariq Anwar. According to media reports, they were “roughed up” at Congress Party headquarters on 19 May 1999 by what has been described as an “angry mob” and “Congress goons”, following the split in the Congress that led to the formation of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). In a similar way, Congress party had denied permission to PV Narasimha Rao’s body to be brought inside 24 Akbar Road.

Not to forget that Murli Manohar Joshi has been a firebrand politician of the saffron party and has been unapologetic for most of his statements regarding Hindutva. He once called Omar Abdullah as a sympathizer of separatists. After hoisting the national flag at Lal Chowk on January 26, 1992, Joshi said in an interview with reddif.com, “His (Abdullah) statement gives rise to several doubts. Is he saying Jammu and Kashmir was not merged? Is he challenging the Constitution and overlooking his own (J-K) Constitution. His is an irresponsible statement which encourages separatists who are saying the same thing in different words.”

Another important factor is the age limit; BJP, unlike Congress, is promoting young leaders. Moreover, the party has a policy of not issuing ticket to any leader above the age of 75. Murli Manohar Joshi is not the only one, Lal Krishna Advani (91), Yashwant Sinha (81), Kalraj Mishra (senior MP from Deoria), former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Shanta Kumar, BC Khanduri, BS Koshiyari and Kariya Munda have not got Lok Sabha ticket this time.

It is clear that the ‘liberal parties’ and the ‘liberal brigade’ is sympathetic to senior leaders of BJP just for the sake of being relevant. BJP had already cleared that any leader above 75 of age is ‘brain dead’ and the party is not going to field any of them. India is a nation with the largest youth population and they need to have representation in politics. In light of these facts, the decision of the saffron party to not field octogenarian leaders is a commendable one.