The free for all in the BJP’s top leadership has pained and angered the BJP rank and file. Many party workers in Delhi threatened to organise protests to drive some sense into the stalwarts.
The free for all in the BJP’s top leadership has pained and angered the BJP rank and file. Many party workers in Delhi threatened to organise protests to drive some sense into the stalwarts.
A senior party leader said most of this anger was directed at lateral entrants (referring to those members who do not have a RSS background) to the party. This was confirmed by BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad who, citing instances of expelled leader Jaswant Singh and LK Advani’s trusted chief campaign manager Sudheendra Kulkarni, said such lateral entrants would never be allowed to occupy top positions in the party.
Disgusted with the internal bickering in the party, a leader said several state leaders brought up the issue at the national executive. According to sources, Gopinath Munde said since the Maharashtra assembly elections were approaching, the party should stop infighting if it hopes to do well. Another senior leader said the recent loss in the Lok Sabha election was not as painful as the internal differences between party leaders.
Though lateral entrants were being squarely blamed for the crisis, senior leader Sushma Swaraj was spared as she had a political background. Swaraj was part of the JP movement and rose through the ranks. Jaswant Singh, despite being a member of Jan Sangh and then BJP, does not qualify as he has no background of agitation.
A party leader, however, said BJP would continue to welcome lateral entrants if they were professional capable, but their position in the party will be clipped. Taking a dig at the “pseudo intellectuals, who form the major chunk of lateral entrants in the party”, a leader said: “We have cadres who can write and speak good English and also write a book.”
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