BJP president Rajnath Singh’s gag order has made partymen adopt different tactics to air their grievances. BJP’s Uttarakhand leader and former chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari resigned his Rajya Sabha seat on Wednesday to press for Uttarakhand CM BC Khanduri’s dismissal.
Koshiyari, who still had five years of his term left, was camping in Delhi for over a week. He sent his resignation directly to the Rajya Sabha chairman.
Khanduri has already stopped taking moral responsibility for party’s poor performance in his state, but the party leadership is yet to accept it. Koshiyari claimed he wanted to “work as an ordinary worker to revive the party and steer it to victory in the 2012 assembly elections”.
BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said Rajnath Singh would speak to both Koshiyari and Khanduri to sort out the problem in the state. The party’s parliamentary board would meet “before the national executive” (beginning Saturday) and take a decision.
The national executive, spread over six sessions, would begin with an address by Rajnath Singh. LK Advani will address the concluding session. But some important leaders will miss it. Yashwant Sinha, who resigned from the body, has not been invited. Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley may not return from Europe in time for the meeting. “The party does not issue a whip for everybody to attend the meeting. About 10 per cent of leaders are absent every time,” Naqvi said.
The meeting is expected to be stormy. The party will discuss its affairs, national politics and future plans. Different state units will present their reports on the Lok Sabha poll performance. Significant ones would be from Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh, where assembly elections are due later this year. It is also the year for the BJP’s organisational polls and membership drive. Every member has to get membership renewed for another two terms (six years). The party’s central office-bearers will meet on Friday to give a final shape to the meet’s agenda.
