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There is trouble in the Uttar Pradesh unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Cracks within the party unit are coming out as some of senior leaders from the state are annoyed with the central leadership after not being given any position within the organisation.
The senior leaders of BJP who had played a major role in the BJP during its initial days in the state are also annoyed with the growing influence of Amit Shah, general secretary of BJP, who is largely seen as an appointee of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Shah is currently touring Uttar Pradesh to strengthen the party unit before the Lok Sabha election in 2014.
Some of the senior leaders of the party who are feeling sidelined by the current leadership are Kalraj Mishra, Lalji Tandon, the Member of Parliament (MP) from Lucknow, and Vinay Katiyar, MP.
“All the three leaders were office bearers in the party but they have not been accommodated in the recent changes that have taken place within the party. So they are a little annoyed by the decision and the BJP leadership will have to work towards pacifying them,” said a senior BJP leader based in Uttar Pradesh.
BJP leaders explain that the trio is more annoyed by the fact that they have not been made part of the decision making process in the state. A section within the party wants the Gujarat chief minister to not only campaign in the state but also contest election to strengthen the cadre.
As a result of these three leaders being left out in the state, the trio from Uttar Pradesh recently chose to side with LK Advani when he had resigned from all posts of the party after the elevation of Narendra Modi as the chief of election campaign committee.
The battle for Uttar Pradesh is the top priority for both BJP President Rajnath Singh and Narendra Modi who want to increase the number of seats for the party where it presently has only 10 Lok Sabha seats out of the total 80 seats in the state.
“The BJP leadership had decided to have young members as office bearers and it was a conscious decision that’s why these leaders from Uttar Pradesh were not accommodated and instead Varun Gandhi and Amit Shah were given prominence in the state,” the BJP leader said.
