Murmurs of protest turning shriller with nomination process kicking in and dissidents filing papers, the national leadership of the BJP has plunged into a fire-fighting exercise. While warning the dissidents to calm down or face expulsion, they are also reaching out to the aggrieved to placate them into submission. The party in-charges, Dharmendra Pradhan and JP Nadda, are now camping in Dehradun to put out the embers of rebellion, alarmingly leaping in the open to engulf the party's seemingly well-oiled election machinery.
With Chief Minister Harish Rawat having plunged into the contest from two constituencies - Kichha and Haridwar Rural - spread over Kumaon and Garhwal divisions, a section of the BJP leaders and functionaries is clamouring for change of its two candidates while warning the party that the two in the contest cannot rise to the stupendous challenge of taking on the aura of the CM who is also the principal driving force behind the ruling party's campaign machinery. They are insisting on the party fielding heavyweights to at least rein in the CM from bolstering the prospects of other candidates of his party in the neighbouring seats.
Meanwhile, Yamkeshwar MlA Vijay Barthwal has raised the banner of revolt after being given a short shrift in this election with the party having swapped him for the daughter of former Chief Minister Maj Gen Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri, Ritu Khanduri Bhushan. He has filed his nomination as an Independent for the seat, a development that might cost the party dear, given his sway over the electorate as well as over the rank and file of the party at the grass roots.
Adding to the tension of the BJP camp, former MlA Asha Nautiyal from Kedarnath has announced her resolve to contest from the seat on being denied ticket by the party. The party has chosen the dissident Congress MlA Shaila Rani Rawat who later switched to the BJP as the candidate from the crucial Kedarnath seat.
The party top brass's attempts to pacify the duo having come a cropper, they are thinking of other options to neutralize their influence in their respective areas. Things are grimmer as aside from the grass roots activists of the party, a large section of the State-level leaders are extending moral support to the dissidents.
It is learnt from sources that the some State leaders are annoyed with the party having axed the former State party president Teerath Singh Rawat from the contestants' list. "When the national leaders now camping in Dehradun tried to pacify them they retorted back while citing the plight of the former State party chief. They cried betrayal, saying that they could no longer repose confidence in the party leadership, dumping the committed leaders for the turncoats. The national leaders chose to keep mum in the face of the State leaders breathing fire," said a BJP insider.