All is not well within the Punjab unit of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). Within a week of announcement of chairmen for 14 improvement trusts by the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, senior party leaders, including the Ministers and the legislators, have raised the banner of revolt against the party.
latest to register protest is party’s Tarn Taran district chief Navreet Singh, who handed over his resignation to the State BJP chief Vijay Sampla on Wednesday during open court at party’s State headquarters at Chandigarh.
“Tarn Taran district chief, along with several other office bearers, including morchaheads, have given their resignations to party president but the same has not been accepted…all efforts were on to pacify them,” a senior BJP leader told The Pioneer, requesting anonymity.
Opposing the appointment of Sarabjit Kaur Batth as chairperson of Tarn Taran improvement trust, Navreet handed over the resignations of all the office bearers in the district to party chief Sampla.
Badal, on August 4, had given his nod to the appointment of 14 improvement trust chairmen — all from the BJP quota. The list was hanging fire since past one year. However, the appointments are yet to be notified.
Sampla altered the list given by his predecessor, Kamal Sharma, that miffed many party leaders, including Cabinet Ministers Anil Joshi, Madan Mohan Mittal, and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Som Parkash, among others.
It has been alleged that the list was finalized without consulting any senior BJP leaders, and most of the leaders learned about the appointments only after it was approved by the Chief Minister.
Sources informed that the leaders were displeased that those people were selected who worked against the party leaders.
Sampla, on the other hand, has claimed that the appointments were discussed “with whom these were required”.
CPS (local Government) and Phagwara MlA Som Parkash has expressed his displeasure over the appointment of Sunil Chum, who he claimed has been “openly opposing” him. Chum hails from Sampla’s camp.
local government Minister Anil Joshi and Industries Minister Madan Mohan Mittal have also expressed opposition over appointment of improvement trusts in their hometowns, Amritsar and Sri Anandpur Sahib, respectively.
Joshi, who head the department that has to issue notification for such appointments, had also claimed that he was “not consulted”.
“Resentment is brewing within the party over these appointments. Everyone is saying that they were not consulted when finalising the list for the same, while there is a practice that the names were discussed with senior leadership and approved by them before sending for final approval or announcement,” another senior BJP leader said, who did not wish to be named.
Objections were raised by the party leaders against the names of Umesh Sharda as Kapurthala Improvement Trust chairman, Dr Ishwar Sardana as Nangal Improvement Trust chairman, Sarabjit Kaur Bath as Tarn Taran Improvement Trust chairman, Suresh Mahajan as Amritsar Improvement Trust chairman, Sunil Chum as Phagwara Improvement Trust chairman, and Gurtej Dhillon as Nabha Improvement Trust chairman.
Besides them, Badal had approved the appointment of Ajay Sood as Khanna Improvement Trust chairman, Dr Subhash Sharma as ludhiana Improvement Trust chairman, Jitender Dev Sharma as Pathankot Improvement Trust chairman, Krishan Mehta as Rajpura Improvement Trust chairman, Suresh Bhatia as Batala Improvement Trust chairman, Dyal Sodhi as Bathinda Improvement Trust chairman, Ramesh Verma as Fazilka Improvement Trust chairman, and Jogi Ram as Sangrur Improvement Trust chairman.