With senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha objecting to the party backing Anshuman Mishra in Jharkhand in the Rajya Sabha elections, the Independent candidate on Wednesday said the ‘old guard should make way for the new’.
"Let the old guard make way for the new. I am here at the direction of the party leadership and have no intention to withdraw from the race unless the party leadership directs me," Mishra, a non-resident businessman, said.
On Sinha’s reservation against BJP backing his candidature for the March 30 elections, Mishra said "Sinha is a serious leader and his statements should be serious as well."
On Wednesday, Sinha had sought the intervention of BJP leader L. K. Advani who promised to speak to party President Nitin Gadkari. Gadkari is believed to have given the nod for BJP backing Mishra in the elections.
"I have come across information according to which a certain person who has filed his nomination in Jharkhand as an independent candidate is also being supported by BJP," Sinha had told reporters in New Delhi.
"I believe if we had to put up a candidate, we should have put up a worker of the party who has spent not years but decades working for the party and not brought somebody from outside and imposed him on Jharkhand and on the party," he had said.
Sanjiv Kumar (JMM), Pradeep Kumar Balmachu (Congress), Praveen Kumar Singh (Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantric) and Independent candidates R K Agarwal and Pawan Kumar Dhoot are the other candidates in the fray.
Tomorrow is the last date of withdrawal.