BJP looking serious to weed out the black sheep, inclined to sabotage the prospects of the official candidates or to desert the party on being denied tickets, the national president of the party Amit Shah is coming to Dehradun on Friday to help the state unit rid of such elements ahead of the crucial election.
As per the party sources, the state BJP leaders have submitted a report to the party top brass, stating that they are poised to win about 40 out of 70 seats up for grabs. In the same breath, they cautioned the central leadership against those elements who are likely to spite the party’s prospects by deserting the party and contesting as dissidents on being denied tickets.
Doubly cautious because of the last election’s bitter experiences when the dissident elements caused the unexpected defeats of party stalwarts like Maj Gen Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri, Union ministers Prakash Pant, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Khazan Das, the party is bent on plugging the loopholes in time to avoid the repeat of the humiliation.
The review meeting of the recently concluded Parivartan Yatra seems to have helped the party leaders conclude that the sizes of the crowds that gathered were related to the number of the ticket seekers.
The more their number the more the crowds, said a party insider, warning that tough days were ahead of the party with the time of finalizing the list of the candidates drawing near. Significantly enough, the state party found that the crowd was the maximum in ten constituencies which elected ten dissident Congress leaders, now in BJP.
They are Harak Singh Rawat, Vijay Bahuguna, Subodh Uniyal, Kunwar pranab Singh Champion, Dr Shailendra Mohan Singhal, Amrita Rawat, Dr Shaila Rani Rawat, Pradeep Batra, Umesh Sharma Kau and Rekha Arya.
It is thus crystal clear to them that the party leaders nursing such constituencies since 2012, hoping to contest in 2017 election, would not yield an inch to the Congress rebels- turned BJP leaders. “It was to show their prowess that they managed to bring mammoth crowds at the rallies. This is what is deepening our trouble as the party top brass is supposed to have committed to giving tickets to the dissident Congress leaders to facilitate their entry to weaken the Congress.
In case we refuse to give tickets to the old timers to humour the dissidents it would surely cause a conflagration which we can hardly afford. Congress is waiting eagerly to poach them while assuring them tickets to contest against the official BJP candidates. If it happens things might turn grim for us,” said a party insider. It is clear that BJP central leadership is determined to wrest the hill state from the grip of the Congress in this election. The party is pinning much hope on Amit Shah who is supposed to have conjured up the sweeping victory of the party in all the five Parliamentary constituencies. “This is why, Shah is eager to identify the troublesome elements in advance so that the party could placate them before they turn rebels and jump in the Congress’s band wagon. Besides, we have information that Shah has conducted a survey on his own to analyse the state of things. This would be compared with the one done by the state party unit before the strategy is firmed up,” said the party insider.. Officially, Shah is coming to inaugurate the newly constructed hospital at Jogiwala. However, the main objective is to have a brain-storming session with the state party leaders in Dehradun to firm up strategy vis-à-vis the potential dissidents to neutralize them much before they bare fangs.