BJP leaders vent anger over poll debacle

Senior leaders of the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today vent their anger at the lack of accountability and debate within the party over its humiliating defeat at the hands of the Congress in the recent general elections.

Speaking at the meeting of the party’s core group, which met here for the first time after the elections, Jaswant Singh, former minister, said there was a “need for serious introspection” within the party in the wake of its shocking defeat. The meeting held at the residence of L K Advani, the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the elections, was attended by party chief Rajnath Singh as well as senior leaders like Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Ram Lal, Bal Apte, Murli Manohar Joshi and Ananth Kumar.

Jaswant Singh, who has won the Lok Sabha election from Darjeeling, raised questions about senior party leaders writing in newspapers about the reasons for the BJP’s defeat even before the party had addressed the same. His reference was to Sudheer Kulkarni, a close aide of L K Advani and Arun Jaitley, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, whose write-ups had raised many an eyebrow over the state of affairs in the BJP.

Interestingly, Jaitley and Kulkarni were key persons in the party’s election campaign. While Jaitley was the overall in-charge of campaign, Kulkarni, who held no official position in the party, looked after Advani’s campaign.

Emerging from the stormy two-hour meeting, Naidu said that “issues about the insiders writing about the party’s inner issues were raised by everybody”. Admitting that the meeting was stormy, Naidu said Jaswant Singh and other leaders had indeed spoken their minds at the meeting. “Jaswant ji has, however, not written any article,” he said.

The BJP is apparently a much-divided house over the issue of who be held responsible for the party’s embarrassing debacle in the elections. Officially, all the office bearers have been asked to have a low profile. However, ginger groups in the party are meeting frequently to discuss crucial issues on the party’s future.