New Delhi, May 14
After senior party leader and former Gujarat Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari’s embarrassing outburst on the Gujarat riots and state Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP today suffered fresh convulsions with former Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi revolting against the central leadership over the appointment of Mr Yadunath Pandey as state BJP unit president.
Mr Marandi, who is the lone BJP Lok Sabha MP from Jharkhand and also the party’s national vice-president, today took on the central leadership by threatening to quit the party if Mr Pandey’s appointment was not quashed.
“There should be internal democracy in the party... If such arbitrary decisions are taken, then workers will lose their ability to work for the party”, Mr Marandi was quoted as saying from Dumka in Jharkhand.
The threat wielded by Mr Marandi, who had been mounting pressure to regain the chief ministership in Jharkhand, is being seen in the BJP circles here as the result of his anger over party general secretary and in charge of Jharkhand Rajnath Singh bulldozing his way in appointing the new state president without consulting the former.
Meanwhile, the central office-bearers under the directions of BJP president L. K. Advani, who is away in Mumbai, engaged themselves in a fire-fighting exercise.
When contacted, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told The Tribune that “there is no crisis in the party and that if at all there were any differences they would be sorted out by the party before party president L. K. Advani returned to Delhi tomorrow”.
In another significant development, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti, who was on a religious sojourn in Amarkantak for the last couple of months, was expected to reach Delhi tomorrow and meet Mr Advani, sources said.
It was Ms Bharti who was responsible for the first major case of dissension in the party in recent times. In October last year, she had shocked everyone by openly challenging Mr Advani’s authority during
a
televised party meeting.Subsequently, RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan’s remarks in April this year that both former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and BJP president L. K. Advani should retire and make way for younger leaders caused a tremor in the party.
A couple of weeks back, party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi triggered speculation by making an avoidable statement, saying that the party would contest the next election under a new leader, forcing the party to issue a rejoinder asserting that Mr Advani would complete his full term as party president.
If this was not enough, party general secretary Pramod Mahajan’s article in the party mouthpiece, “BJP Today”, last week, describing the Gujarat riots as a blot on India, triggered speculation about a fresh bout of feud among the second rung leadership in the party.
