With incessant infighting in Chandigarh Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) coming to the fore time and again, the Central BJP has been trying hard to mend the fences and put up a united front to boost the party's prospects in the upcoming lok Sabha elections.
To strengthen the party before the polls, the BJP has now also kept its doors open for the dissidents, who had left the party in the past. Aarti Mehra, BJP's in-charge for Chandigarh affairs on Wednesday convened a meeting of city party leaders and asked them to sink their differences to strengthen the party's base for the crucial upcoming elections. Before the lok Sabha elections, the party is leaving no stone unturned to play its cards right and have even extended an olive branch to the rebels.
Addressing the media, Mehra on Wednesday said the party would put up a united front in the upcoming polls to wrest Chandigarh seat from the Congress. Attempting to paper over the cracks, she said, there are no differences in the party. It is only that sometimes, the leaders have different opinions, which is often blown out of the proportion. Though she accepted that there were some incidents when the senior party leaders had shown their dissent, she tried to dodge the questions on infighting among three leaders of the city BJP.
The city BJP's three big shots, including city party president Sanjay Tandon, former city MP Satya Pal Jain and former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan are vying for the party's ticket from the city parliamentary seat. In an attempt to consolidate their position and to remain the front runner in the ticket race, the trio has been actively working "separately".
The three senior leaders' often organise party functions, campaigns, meetings etc. "separately" without apprising each other.When asked, Mehra played down the dissensions among the three leaders by saying "let bygones be bygones". About party's candidate from the city for the elections, she said, "The party is yet to decide on the candidate. And, it is yet to be decided whether the candidate would be an outsider or from within the Chandigarh BJP. It will be announced soon."
Meanwhile, with an aim to accomplish the party's 272-plus mission, the party has decided to focus on door-to-door campaign in the city. Besides, the alleged involvement of local MP Pawan Kumar Bansal in Railway Board Bribery Scam, the party is all set to raise the local issues, including unresolved and unaddressed problems of the industrialists, traders, employees, Housing Board houses, Tenements, slum dwellers among others in the elections.
Talking about the local issues, Aarti said, "The party will continue its campaign against corrupt local MP Bansal, who has hurt the sentiments of the citizens of Chandigarh. Besides, the party assures the industrialists of implementation of MSMED Act and to resolve other issues." She lashed out at Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and dismissed their winning prospects in lok Sabha elections, Mehra said, "The AAP is deceiving the people of this country. They have failed to perform so far and have not fulfilled their promises. People see a ray of hope in BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and would definitely vote in favour of BJP to oust the corrupt Congress at the Centre."
The party has appointed Raghubir lal Arora as Chandigarh parliamentary seat Palak (guardian/coordinator) and Arun Sood and Ramvir Bhatti as parliamentary conveners. The BJP also announced formation of State election committee comprising of Sanjay Tandon, Satya Pal Jain, Harmohan Dhawan, Prem Kaushik, Chandershekhar, Arun Sood, Jairam Joshi, Yash Pal Mahajan, Kamla Sharma.
The name of Yash Pal Mahajan in the Committee came as big surprise as he had announced his retirement from active politics ahead of the MCC elections in 2011. Yash Pal was upset from the party's senior leadership and resigned after accusing the senior party leaders of sidelining leaders like him, who worked for decades for strengthening party's base in Chandigarh.