Similar rebellious voices of revolt that started in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against party president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi after Bihar debacle are echoing in Madhya Pradesh against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan after defeat in the Ratlam – Jhabua parliamentary by-election.
BJP State vice president Raghunandan Sharma on Thursday said, “Elections are not won with broken hearts. At present, the moral of the party workers is down as the devoted party workers are neither getting proper placement in the organisation nor in the Government. Senior party leaders Pyarelal Khandelwal and Kushabhau Thakre’s theory is been replaced and now attempts are been made to win the election by money power and other means.”
Sharma further said that now those people get importance in the organisation who are new entrants and are expert in serving leaders interests along with their own interests. Old and devoted workers of the party are not getting attention in the party making them disappointed, he added.
A senior parliamentarian Prahlad Patel said that it is necessary to review the candidate selection and defeat. “Why the part suffered defeat in Jhabua despite making so many efforts, this should be reviewed. Though it would be impulsive to say anything or to hold any individual responsible for this defeat at this point of time but party should review the points of defeat. And it should also be discussed in the review meeting that whether the party fielded weak candidate.”
Though the party’s state president and MP Nandkumar Singh Chouhan does not go with the views of these senior leaders but agrees that the review of the defeat should be done and says,
“It is the natural course of action, that after every loss the party reviews to look at the weaknesses due to that it lost and that could not be repeated in future.”