Once silent and suppressed, splinters in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have now come to the fore after its disastrous Assembly poll performance. Discussions at the party’s office at Pt Pant Marg, on Wednesday, were mostly that of accusations on the leadership for being “indifferent” toward local workers while resorting to negative campaigning and also reaching out to various religious leaders for support. Party insiders have indicated that an enquiry is also being carried out on the effectiveness of panna pramukhs the Delhi elections.
A Delhi BJP leader on Wednesday resigned from the media cell of the party saying smear campaign caused significant damage to the party and ruined its image. He, however, withdrew the resignation immediately and denied the reports saying he had never quit the post.
In a post on social networking site Facebook, he alleged that the party failed to convey the message to public that the BJP was better equipped to serve the people of Delhi. “During campaign, the BJP worked on positive points. But after January 20, the leader starting personal attack and negative campaign as suggested by some new entrants to the party,” it said.
In another instance, an Akali candidate attributed the debacle to negative campaign by the combine, controversial utterances by some Hindutva leaders and support of the Dera Sacha Sauda. Akali Dal candidate from Rajouri Garden Manjinder Singh Sirsa charged BJP did not even consult Akali Dal before seeking the support of Dera and said the alliance failed to put forth the “positive” vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Delhi before the voters.
The Akalis, who are at loggerheads with Dera Sacha Sauda after its chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh came out with his pictures posing as Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, said taking the support of the Dera was “fatal” for them as Sikh voters did not support the alliance nor was SAD was consulted before taking Dera’s support. The BJP leaders have also alleged that the central leaders of BJP took over the charge of campaign from the Delhi unit that caused dissidence among the local leaders.
From having 33.07 per cent votes in the 2013 Assembly elections, the party has just had a minor decrease this time with the present vote share remaining at 32.2 per cent. This has been the party’s only take away from the February Assembly elections, yet it is analyzing each of its strategy, an important one of which was president Amit Shah’s panna pramukh concept.
The intact vote share implies two alternates — either the panna pramukhs failed to add any new voter to BJP or it was the result of groundwork by panna pramukhs that the BJP managed to retain its loyal voters despite the strong undercurrent of the AAP.
Meanwhile, Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhayay said the Delhi unit leaders will be meeting the national leaders after the return of BJP national president Amit Shah from Ahmedabad. No meeting of the party has been convened so far after the poll results were declared.