By IANS,
Jammu : Hari Om, a senior leader and spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Thursday quit the party following sharp differences among the senior leadership here over the candidate selection for the assembly polls.
“I hereby resign from the party position and also from the primary membership of BJP,” he said in a letter to state party president Ashok Khajuria.
Hari Om, considered an intellectual and ideologue for the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir, was not available for comments.
Party sources said he was attending a meeting chaired by Shanta Kumar, senior BJP leader and former Himachal Pradesh chief minister, to finalise the list of candidates. Following some differences, he left the meet in a huff, they said.
The party sources said there were marked differences among senior BJP leaders in the state over candidate selection, especially for three seats of Jammu city which are considered prestigious for the party.
The list of contenders for some seats in Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu region is getting bigger as the BJP feels it has better chances there after the two-month agitation for getting back land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board.
The party had won only one seat, from Jammu, in the 2002 assembly elections.
The seven-phased elections in the state will be held Nov 17-Dec 24.