Son has right to seek UP poll ticket, but I’m not lobbying for it: BJP MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi

New Delhi : BJP MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi on Tuesday said if her son is seeking the party’s ticket to fight Uttar Pradesh assembly election, then it was his right to do so but maintained that she is not lobbying for his candidature.

Joshi, the Lok Sabha MP from Allahabad, was in Delhi where she met Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan. She described it as a “courtesy call” and one to discuss party issues.

Speculation is rife that Joshi’s son Mayank Joshi is trying hard to get the BJP’s ticket to fight the assembly election from Lucknow Cantt, the seat his mother had won in the 2017 state polls but vacated in 2019 after she was elected to the Lok Sabha from Allahabad.

The BJP’s Suresh Chandra Tiwari had won the Lucknow Cantt seat in the bye-election of 2019, defeating Samajwadi Party’s Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.

After the meeting, Joshi said her son expecting BJP ticket is a separate story and she had visited Pradhan to discuss zonal issues related to the party ahead of the UP polls.

”If he’s asking for a party ticket, then it’s his right to seek it. But that is not the issue I had discussed today. I have already said that I do not intend to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In fact, I do not want to fight any polls,” Joshi told reporters.

“I am not lobbying for my son. The party has his profile and will decide accordingly,” she added.

Lucknow Cantt is one of the nine assembly constituencies in Lucknow district and has a sizeable chunk of Hindu Brahmin voters.

Polling in Lucknow Cantt is scheduled on February 23 in the fourth phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh. The election results will be out on March 10.