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| BJPs Crisis Worsens, Yashwant Sinha Quits Party Posts | | | Agencies
New Delhi, June 13: The raging dissent in BJP burst out into the open on Saturday when Yashwant Sinha resigned as Vice President and all other posts and demanded that all its office bearers including in the parliamentary party also quit to jointly share the responsibility for the electoral defeat.
Significantly, Sinhas four-page letter bomb exploded in the face of the party President Rajnath Singh, who addressed a press conference to impose a "gag" order on party leaders and functionaries asking them to "refrain" from airing their views in public and in the media that will negatively impact the partys image.
Violation of this, Singh threatened, would invite disciplinary action. But he ruled out any action against Arun Jaitley, the new Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, and Sudheendra Kulkarni, a close aide of L K Advani, whose writings in the media analysing the party defeat opened a can of worms.
The former External Affairs and Finance Ministers missive raised serious questions over the partys "reluctance to introspect and introspect comprehensively and openly" which he said was "unacceptable" to a larger number of people within the organisation.
"So is the rat race for posts. If we are a party with a difference, let us set an example in abnegation. If the responsibility is collective, as I have often heard you say, then all of us should jointly share the responsibility for our defeat," Sinha said in the letter.
"Let the party implement its own Kamaraj Plan under which all office-bearers of the party and the parliamentary party should resign from their posts which should then be filled up through the process of election laid down by our constitution," Sinha said in the letter, copies of which were also circulated to members of the partys Core Group.
His resignation was accepted by the party President soon after he received it.
Sinha said he was making a beginning by submitting his resignation from the post of vice president of the party, from the membership of its National Executive and from all positions of resonsibility in the national and state level.
In barbs apparently aimed at Jaitley, Sinha said while on the one hand, the party is avoiding a systematic appraisal of its performance, on the other, those who were responsible for the management of the campaign, have already made their views public through interviews and articles in the media.
"They have drawn their conclusions, apportioned blame and given themselves a clean chit. Those of us who actually toiled in the field and took all the risk have not even been heard," he said.
Sinha praised Advani for declining to take up the position of Leader of Opposition of Lok Sabha, which he relented after persuasion, but in the same breath, he was critical of the complete disregard of the Parliamentary Party constitution in the election of office bearers of Parliamentary Party on May 31.
"It is difficult to avoid the impression that in the BJP we put a premium on failure," he said apparently referring the nomination of Jaitley, who was the chief election strategist, as Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
Significantly, Sinha had raised a banner of revolt against Advani in 2005 too when the latter praised Pakistan founder M A Jinnah.
"We failed to carry out a review after our defeat in the last election. I am getting a sinking feeling that once again there is a conspiracy of silence. We are shying away from pin-pointing our weaknesses and fixing responsibility," Sinha said.
"I am sure a detailed review would be instructive and show us the path for the future. At the same time, it would also help us establish the principle of accountability in the party," he said.
"It appears as if some people in the party are determined to ensure that the principle of accountability does not prevail so that their own little perch is not disturbed," Sinha said.
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