The infighting and voice of dissent within the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party in Haryana does not seem to end, at least for now.
At the time when the state BJP’s two-day executive body meet that concluded at Karnal on Tuesday, set the tone for the lok Sabha and Assembly polls 2019, simmering differences within the State party unit came to the fore once again, as the Union Minister Birender Singh targeted Chief Minister Manohar lal.
The Union Minister of Steel, Birender Singh, threw his weight behind over a dozen “dissident” MlAs on Tuesday putting himself at loggerheads with the Chief Minister.
At the state executive meet, Birender Singh hit out at the party leadership openly raising the issues of disgruntled MlAs including pending CM’s announcements.
Birender Singh’s wife, Uchana Kalan MlA Prem lata, is also among over a dozen BJP MlAs who have been airing their grievances against the Chief Minister for the last few months.
The Union Minister, while talking to the mediapersons at Karnal said, “The party should listen to the grievances of disgruntled MlAs.”
“It has been more than two and a half years since the BJP came to the power in Haryana. The MlAs are answerable to the people and if they want development works to be expedited, it should be done… I would have done the same thing as an MlA,” he said, defending the statements of dissident party MlAs.
Continuing his tirade against the Chief Minister, Birender Singh also questioned him for favouring the bureaucrats in the State. The Chief Minister has confidence in bureaucrats but not in his Ministers or MlAs, said the Union Minister.
Commenting on the Haryana Government’s recent decision on allowing the Ministers to carry out transfers of Class I and II officers of their respective departments till May 15, Birender Singh, a former Congressman said that such powers should be given to the Ministers permanently and not for just 15 days.
The Union Minister, in a scathing attack on Manohar lal for slow pace of development works and his pending announcements, further said that a deadline should be fixed for the implementation of CM’s announcements and focus should be on implementation of various projects or schemes.
Notably, the infighting within the Haryana BJP unit has been on for past several months, with at least 16 MlAs issuing statements against the Chief Minister at various public forums.
The open criticism of party MlAs against the Chief Minister has not helped the BJP led State Government’s image, which has been struggling to shrug off allegations of corruption and non-performance levelled by its own MlAs.
During a series of meetings with party central leadership during March, the rebelling Haryana MlAs tore into their own government registering a complaint against the bureaucracy, slow pace of development works, pending announcements of Chief Minister among other issues.
However, the efforts of central party leadership had not met with success in dousing the rebel trouble in Haryana party unit.
The ‘disgruntled’ party MlAs had last week constituted a three-member committee to hold talks with the Chief Minister to resolve their issues. The three members committee included MlAs Mool Chand Sharma, Pawan Saini and Naresh Kaushik.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister has continued denying existence of any discontent or groupism, among the party MlAs saying that there are no dissidents in the State BJP.