BJP’s Media Ban Amid Ticket Distribution Disarray Ahead of J&K Assembly Polls

Protests continue for third day, party’s Chhamb workers oppose fielding of ‘outsider’

As pressure mounts on the BJP in Jammu due to daily protests over ticket allocation, the party has banned the entry of media inside its party headquarters at Trikuta Nagar here.

Continuous protest demonstrations have rocked the party office since Monday, when the list of its candidates was released. Three protests took place consecutively for three days since Monday, which were highlighted by the local and national media, leaving the party leadership red faced.

Sensing more trouble, the party has now asked the media persons to only visit the newly established media centre at Ritz Hotel in the Channi Himmat area. After notifying the media about a press briefing by BJP spokesperson Sunil Sethi at the party office, the venue was hurriedly changed to the new media centre on Tuesday. A protest was held by the women workers of the party on Tuesday, demanding more representation to women.

Soon after the first list was released on Monday, party workers started protesting at its office, asking the leadership to allocate tickets to those who had been working for the BJP years.

In the list, many tickets were allocated to turncoats who switched their loyalties recently. The party withdrew the list and released a truncated list of 16 candidates for the first phase of the polls. Another list of 29 candidates was released on Tuesday.

On Monday, when several workers entered the BJP office during their protest, several mediapersons were also present inside. While BJP leaders were being confronted by their own workers, the visuals were captured by the media to the distaste of senior leaders.

J&K BJP media in-charge Pardeep Mahotra said that as a new media centre had been established for elections at a hotel in Channi Himmat, the media had been urged to visit that office only.

“The BJP office in Trikuta Nagar doesn’t have enough space to accommodate so many mediapersons at a given time. This is the reason why media has been disallowed to enter this office,” said Mahotra.

Meanwhile, a protest took place at the BJP office on Wednesday as well, with party workers from Chhamb constituency of Jammu gathered there. Protesters raised slogans against fielding of former MLA Rajeev Sharma from the seat. They demanded that a local leader should be fielded from the seat, instead of an “outsider”.