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PM Modi presser! BJP may quash dissidence after Bihar polls

By FnF Desk | PUBLISHED: 28, Oct 2015, 15:23 pm IST | UPDATED: 28, Oct 2015, 15:23 pm IST

PM Modi presser! BJP may quash dissidence after Bihar polls New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may not be able to move against Arun Shourie for his sharp criticism of the Union government since he is no longer a member of the party, but others may not be so safe. The party is contemplating taking disciplinary action against some leaders who have been making out-of-turn statements.

On Tuesday, Shourie, a minister in the first National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, described Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as weak. “The way to characterize policies of the government is—Congress plus a cow. The policies are the same,” Shourie said at a book launch function in New Delhi.

Meanwhile, member of Parliament (MP) from Patna Sahib constituency and former minister Shatrughan Sinha has repeatedly accused the party of not inviting him to election meetings.

“Let Bihar elections get over and then the party will decide about Shatrughan Sinha. Some steps should not be surprising,” said a senior leader of the BJP who is in Bihar for the election campaign.

Political analysts feel that action against Sinha is expected because he has already declared that Bihar polls results will not be in favour of the BJP. “Shatrughan Sinha has compared Nitish Kumar with Jyoti Basu. Basu didn’t lose any election; so Sinha has already declared Bihar poll results,” said Jai Mrug, a Mumbai-based political analyst.

Sinha alone is not the only problem for the BJP.

Problems are also growing in Rajasthan, where posters of former foreign minister Jaswant Singh have come up. Singh had unsuccessfully contested as a rebel candidate against the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha has also been critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision of not giving him any official post in the government. “All those who are above the age of 75 were declared brain dead on 26 May 2014,” Sinha had said in June this year.

Interestingly, Shatrughan Sinha, Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh and Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was recently attacked by the Shiv Sena in Mumbai, are all lateral entries in the party and were not part of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization of the BJP.

Political analysts feel that the BJP leadership, primarily Modi, has taken a bold decision by creating a young leadership in the party, rather than continuing to work with veteran leaders.

“The BJP has to create new leaders, younger leaders. It is a Kamraj type plan, BJP has tried to retire elder leaders so that younger leadership can be given a chance. If this plan works out, then it will be good for the party, but if the BJP fails, then there will be serious attack from its own ranks. The comments of all these senior leaders had started after the Delhi election,” said Mrug.

Kumarasami Kamraj, or K Kamaraj, was a senior leader in the Congress party during the tenure of former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. Kamraj had come up with a plan to ask senior leaders in the government, both at the national and state level, to resign from their posts and devote their time to work for the party. The revolutionary plan was called the Kamraj Plan. # Source: The LiveMint