Early Times Report
jammu, Nov 13: Former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, three former Union Ministers MM Joshi, Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha, besides nearly a dozen of BJP MPs, including Shatrugan Sinha, have challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah and charged them with destroying the BJP. They revolted against the Prime Minister and BJP national president on the eve of Diwali and demanded a debate on the circumstances leading to the BJP's debacle in Bihar so that those responsible for the defeat were made accountable. They said those who managed and planned the election campaign in Bihar must not be associated with the probe team. Their refrain was that those who controlled the government and the party during the past nearly two years have created mistrust between the government and the party and the party cadres and the people and that if the BJP is to survive, action has to be taken against those who invited defeats in the Delhi and Bihar Assemblies' elections. The open revolt by the BJP veterans has rattled both the Prime Minister and the BJP national president.
Convinced that more and more BJP MPs could train their guns at the Prime Minister and Amit Shah, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is also held responsible for the Bihar verdict, on Thursday met with MM Joshi. Obviously, he met with Joshi to persuade the dissidents in the party through him not to precipitate the crisis and the meeting between the two took place amid reports that the BJP could take action against LK Advani, Joshi, Shanta Kumar, Yashwant Singh, Shatrugan Sinha and all those made statements to the effect that the BJP suffered a humiliating defeat because of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. A report from New Delhi, however, suggests, that Joshi told Jaitley that some corrective measures needed to be taken to save the party. In other words, report suggested that Jaitley returned empty handed.
Here in Jammu, Prof Hari Om, senior BJP leader and former political advisor to the J&K BJP president, on Thursday urged the Prime Minister to intervene in J&K to "save the BJP". In a written statement, he, among other things, said: "J&K will become BJP-free in case no corrective measures were taken at the earliest…The intervention of the Prime Minister, who, along with others, built up the party brick by brick and who knows much about J&K, will help the party to restore its pristine position and play the role it is required to play to promote the paramount national interest in the state and obtain for the neglected Jammu province the share in the polity and economy it deserves as part and parcel of the state".
Prof Hari Om, who has served the BJP in various capacities for more than two decades and is considered the party's ideologue, is not the only one in the J&K BJP who feels that the credibility of the BJP in the state stands completely dented and eroded. There are many Hari Oms in the BJP, who hold the same view, but not in public.
One senior BJP leader told this correspondent on the condition of anonymity that "J&K also needs LK Advani to set things right in the BJP". Another BJP leader, who is considered "close" to the outgoing J&K BJP president Jugal Kishore Sharma and BJP general secretary (Organization Ashok Koul, candidly said that the "BJP is not on the verge of decimation; it has already got decimated" and that "it is the 'gang of three' - BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, BJP national president Avinash Rai Khanna and J&K BJP general secretary Ashok Koul - which have destroyed the BJP in the state". "Madhav, Khanna and Koul must be reined in to save the BJP," he further said, adding that "their removal has become imperative".
Another senior BJP leader went to the extent of endorsing the view of Prof Hari Om that the "BJP must snap its ties with the PDP". "Even removal of Madhav, Khanna and Koul will not help the BJP to win back the trust of the estranged people of Jammu; what is immediately needed is withdrawal of support to the PDP," he said, adding that "we can't face the angry people as our ministers and top party leaders have been conducting in a most irresponsible manner". He also endorsed the view that "J&K needs Advani to set things right in the party".
The point is that the BJP at the national level and in J&K is in complete disarray. |
