Dissent in BJP grows louder

“Accountability has to be fixed. Review should be made of the election debacle. We need to find out what went wrong, who were responsible. That’s what ‘margdarshak mandal’ said,” Singh, the Ara MP, said in a reference to the statement of Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and two other veterans.

Manoj Tewari, MP from Norh-East Delhi who was one of the leading BJP campaigners for the poll, also joined other BJP leaders in criticising the party’s election campaign in Bihar. “We clearly failed to convince people of Bihar on our party’s agenda. Undoubtedly, the strategy of grand alliance (of JDU-RJD-Congress) had been proved better than ours. We could have campaigned in a more strategical way to reach out larger masses,” said Tewari.

As BJP grappled with the dissent by four party veterans, Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu, on Friday, suggested that they should have raised their views at a party forum rather than going public. Naidu said, “Some of our senior leaders have raised certain issues. It would have been better if these issues were raised in a party forum rather than public, but still we will take note of these views and concerns.” He added, “We will discuss with all the concerned. The parliamentary board has already decided to take up with all the concerned and discuss the shortcomings that led to the defeat in Bihar. That has been the practise,” Naidu said.