By IANS
Lucknow: Just as the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) got cracking on its rank and file, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was still brooding over the humiliating losses that it suffered at the recently concluded assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.
While chief minister and BSP chief Mayawati started issuing dos and don’ts to her cadres and even firing the non-performers, the BJP had failed to rise beyond discussions or debates over the reasons for the defeat.
At the first formal review meeting held at the BJP state headquarters here Tuesday, senior BJP leaders said that the prime factor for the party’s electoral reverses was its failure to contain the opposition-sponsored propaganda that it would join hands with the Samajwadi Party.
State BJP chief Kesari Nath Tripathi, who had already owned up moral responsibility for the party’s debacle after he suffered defeat in Allahabad, told IANS Wednesday: “Well, it is time to introspect and take corrective measures for the future.”
He said, “while Tuesday’s meeting was a review of only 82 of the state’s 403 assembly constituencies, the remaining constituencies would be taken up at similar meetings to be held at Gorakhpur and Varanasi shortly.”
Tripathi proposes to present his final assessment before the party’s national executive to be held in Jaipur from June 15 to 17 where he was also expected to put in his papers as state chief of the party.
Present at the meeting was BJP State Legislature group leader Om Prakash Singh, who was the party’s state chief in the past.
While everyone agreed on the failure of the party’s leadership to counter the opposition propaganda about a possible “post-poll” truck between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party, some of the participants at the meeting also sought to blame the leadership on its selection of candidates.
The meeting welcomed BJP national president Rajnath Singh’s move to appoint party general secretary Arun Jaitley as the new in-charge of the party in Uttar Pradesh – a position held by veteran Kalyan Singh.
“I am aware that the task is tough and daunting; but I am sure we will succeed”, said Rajnath Singh over telephone from New Delhi.