Senior BJP leader in Chhattisgarh Karuna Shukla, who is the niece of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,on Saturday resigned from the party alleging that she was being ignored by the BJP leadership.
And Shukla,63, a former MP, told Express that for the last five days she had tried in vain to get an audience with BJP chief Rajnath Singh.
“I have given 32 years of (my life) to the party and started from the ward (level) and became an MP. For the last couple of months, I was being ignored by the party. I spoke to everyone, including Sushma Swaraj and Venkaiah Naidu and expressed my feelings.However, the situation remained the same which forced me to take this step,” she said.
The veteran leader had been seeking a ticket from the Baloda Bazar seat for the upcoming Chhattisgarh Assembly polls after she had lost to Union Minister Charan Das Mahant from the Korba Parliamentary seat in the 2009 LS polls.
Besides, Shukla had served as the president of the BJP Mahila Morcha. “I gave so much to the party and wanted to work for some more time. I was a member of the undivided Madhya Pradesh Assembly too. Despite all this, my own party president could not find even five minutes for me,” she said.
Sources close to her said she had been deeply hurt by the fact that she was left out of the election process.
“The party also ignored her claims for a ticket from Baloda Bazar,” they said.