At a time when candidates of all other parties in Chandigarh are busy going door-to-door seeking votes, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet to put its house in order.
A large number of local party leaders and workers remain unhappy over the candidature of actor-turned politician Kirron Kher from Chandigarh. The dissidence in the party has also hit its political campaign ahead of the crucial lok Sabha polls.Though the party high command had announced the party’s candidate on Saturday, the campaign is yet to get off the ground.
Interestingly, the BJP local unit had gone into an overdrive to woo city voters ahead of the announcement of the local candidate. A number of campaigns including ‘Modi Cafeteria’, ‘NaMo Tea Campaign’, ‘Kamal Mehandi & Rangoli programme’, ‘Nayi Soch, Nayi Umeed, Nayi Rajneeti’ among others were launched to reach out to the city voters in last two months.
However, after Kher’s name was declared, the party is yet to start election campaigning and is struggling to deal with the internal dissidence.Prior to the declaration of its Chandigarh candidate, the local BJP unit had planned a number of campaigns for its local candidate, albeit, it deferred the launch of new political campaigns given the simmering revolt in the party.
The party had also planned to re-launch its website with new features and pictures of party’s candidate. But, the re-launch of party’s website is also awaited.Not only this, the party’s media cell, which was pro-active on social media and in disseminating the information of party’s activities earlier, also seems to have lost all the enthusiasm now.
A senior party leader requesting anonymity said, “The local party leaders and workers have not yet accepted that the party’s ticket has been given to an outsider. Senior leaders are not happy at all as they were expecting that a local leader would get party’s ticket.”
“The party is yet to convince a number of leaders to support Kher in election campaigning,” added the leader.Showing his dissent over party’s decision to field an “outsider”, the senior party leader Harmohan Dhawan continued to stay away from the party meetings.
The party’s in-charge for Chandigarh affairs, Aarti Mehra and Chandigarh party chief Sanjay Tandon had met Dhawan on Tuesday evening and persuaded him to support party’s decision. When contacted, Sanjay Tandon said, “We had met Dhawan and he has sought some time. He is a senior party leader and would support party’s decision.”
On party’s election campaigning, he said, “A meeting regarding the election campaigning strategy was called today and party’s candidate Kirron Kher discussed some issues with party leaders. We have already allocated election related duties to party workers and leaders and election campaigning will start.”
Former city MP and senior party leader, Satya Pal Jain said, “Many party workers have already joined the party campaign and other disgruntled workers would also fall in line after some days. Efforts are going on to persuade senior leader Dhawan to support the party.”
Notably, the BJP Central leadership has already made it clear that the candidate would not be changed from any constituency and party workers have to work unitedly to ensure party’s victory in the ensuing polls.Rejecting the three local contenders including Chandigarh party chief Sanjay Tandon, two former MPs Harmohan Dhawan and Satya Pal Jain, the party high command had decided to field actor Kirron Kher to contest the ballot fight against Congress’ sitting MP Pawan Kumar Bansal and AAP’s Gul Panag.
Earlier, Kirron Kher had received a hostile reception in the city with party workers hurling eggs at her car and waving black flags showing their disapproval for her candidature.Calling her an “outsider”, the disgruntled party workers also chanted slogans “Kirron Kher go back” at Chandigarh airport and later, at the party office.