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| Banner of revolt flies high in BJP | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Nov 3: After taking too long in finalizing the list of its candidates, the Bhartiya Janta Party –most confident of its prospects among all parties –is badly hit by the dissention bug all over the region.
A deep state of disarray also came to the fore today when BJP had to change tickets of three of its candidates for Rajouri district. It is learnt that one of the candidates had refused to contest on BJP ticket while another has gone public with charges of corruption which are yet to be denied by the party leadership.
BJP leader from Kalakote Nirmala Sharma went to the press today with startling allegations against party leadership after her mandate to contest election was withdrawn. Nirmala Sharma was named as party’s contestant from Kalakote in the first ever list released by BJP late last month which was widely released to the media.
Nirmala said here today that she was called by the party leaders to collect her authority letter but on reaching Jammu, she alleged, the senior officers including President Ashok Khajuria and organization secretary Ajay Jamwal started playing tricks with her. “I phoned Ajay Jamwal and he asked me to visit Circuit House where party leaders were meeting under leadership of Shanta Kumar. At Circuit House Ashok Khajuria told me to get in touch with Ajay Jamwal (who was not present there). When I again approached Jamwal, he asked me shell out Rs five lakhs to the party for confirmation of ticket”, Nirmala told media persons here.
Repeated attempts were made to get comments from Ajay Jamwal but he was not available. Finally, when this reporter reached over his phone, the voice on other side said that Jamwal is in New Delhi and forgot his cellphone at home.
Another candidate from Rajouri district, Abdul Hamid nominated for Darhal constituency in refused to contest on BJP ticket while the party came to a near split in Rajouri on choice of candidate. Now BJP has changed faces for all three seats in the district. The Central Election Committee of BJP has finalized the names of three candidates for the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. According to party handout Dev Raj Sharma will contest from Darhal, Vivodh Gupta from Rajouri and Bharat Bhushan Vaid from Kalakote.
Meanwhile, a leader from the women wing of party Geeta Thakur today launched an open revolt against the party for ignoring women and the committed party cadre. Geeta said that BJP leadership has gone completely bankrupt and its promises of providing reservation to the women are hollow.
Though in a bid to cash in on the Amarnath land agitation, the Bharatiya Janata Party has been aiming to make a mark in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections but the state unit is rattled by a revolt from within over the selection of candidates.The top trio of the party in the state, state unit chief Ashok Khajuria and his two predecessors Chaman Lal Gupta and Nirmal Singh, have chosen for themselves the Jammu East, Jammu West and Gandhi Nagar constituencies - all in this winter capital and considered the safest for the BJP. Singh’s candidature for the Gandhi Nagar seat has been opposed by about a dozen senior leaders who see him as an outsider since he hails from Badholi area of Kathua district.
While Singh, twice state party president, has never won an election, Khajuria had lost the last elections of 2002 from the Jammu-East constituency. Gupta had not contested then as he was an MP and minister of state for defence.
Angry at the selection, state BJP senior vice president and spokesman Hari Om resigned in protest last week.
“I don’t say that my resignation would make any difference to a party of the BJP’s size and reach, but this is the time for the party to do some self-introspection,” Hari Om said.
Vijay Kumar, a long-time BJP activist from Gandhi Nagar, said: “The party is running down the loyal workers and promoting the spent forces who have a history of losing elections or playing second fiddle to the ruling parties.” Khajuria refused to comment on the matter.
The BJP won only one seat in the 2002 elections but this time it feels it can do better in Hindu-dominated pockets of Jammu region after the two-month long agitation this year over land allotment to the Amarnath Shrine Board.
As the Kashmir Valley protested the state government’s move to allot forest land to the shrine board for pilgrim facilities, several Hindu groups led protests here when the allotment was cancelled. |
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