BJP president Amit Shah has said that it was his party\u2019s decision not to give Lok Sabha poll tickets to those above 75 years of age, leading to veteran leaders like LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi missing out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shah also said he wanted \u201cdirect mandate\u201d from people to come to Parliament and that is why he decided to contest the general election.He, however, played down speculation that he may join the government if the BJP retains power at the Centre, saying such a claim has no basis as one can become a minister even as a Rajya Sabha member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the question of party veterans not given tickets, Shah said, \u201cOnly the media is pushing this issue. No one above 75 has been given tickets. This is the party\u2019s decision.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Talking about his own candidature from Gandhinagar, where he replaces Advani, Shah said, \u201cI have been an MLA for 25 years. I am a political worker who stays among the people. When my assembly term ended, there was no Lok Sabha election. So, I went to Rajya Sabha. I wanted a direct mandate from the people to go to Parliament and the party agreed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Underlining that Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s leadership and national security are two major issues for the party in these elections, Shah said Modi brought the policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism to the fore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis policy has been successful. We had the surgical strikes and the air strikes. Through these two interventions, a message has gone to the world that apart from the United States and Israel, if there is any other country which can avenge the murder of members of its armed forces, it is India,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Balakot strikes, the BJP chief said even Pakistan\u2019s army and its prime minister accepted that they had suffered losses. They were even preparing for retaliation but even then opposition was asking for proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI believe there cannot be a bigger disrespect to our armed forces. The opposition should not stoop so low for their vote-bank politics,\u201d he said.When asked about BJP\u2019s sitting MPs facing anti-incumbency, Shah said it is Modi who is contesting election from every seat not these MPs.Even Amit Shah is not contesting elections. From every seat, Narendra Modi is contesting. The country is voting to make Narendra Modi prime minister,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BJP president Amit Shah has said that it was his party\u2019s decision not to give Lok Sabha poll tickets to those above 75 years of age, leading to veteran leaders like LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi missing out. Shah also said he wanted \u201cdirect mandate\u201d from people to come to Parliament and that is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58509,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58507\/revisions\/58509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}