Resentment prevails among BJP workers, with the party leaders being selective in taking action in cases of indiscipline.
Of late, the party has sent notices to two legislators — Sanjay Sharma from Narsinghpur district’s Tendukheda and Jalam Singh Patel from Narsinghpur — for their remarks against farmers’ welfare minister Gaurishankar Bisen in context of the Balaghat incident, in which an RSS worker was allegedly beaten up by policemen. Sharma and Patel had blamed Bisen for the episode.
Both later expressed their regret to the party high command in the state, but there are several who believe the BJP leadership has failed in infusing a sense of discipline by not taking action against several such influential members.
Recently, Prakash Mirchandani — the party’s face on TV news channels — was suspended in wake of a Facebook post in which he blamed the BJP leadership for extending favours to certain workers who believe in sycophancy. However, no notice was issued to Mirchandani before action was taken against him.
Another such case revolves around BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who attacked the government and the bureaucracy on at least two occasions on Twitter. He also disapproved the action taken against Mirchandani. However, state BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan and general secretary (organisation) Suhash Bhagat have chosen to ignore his statements.
Party workers are aggrieved — though the state unit cannot take any action against Vijayvargiya directly as he is a national unit office-bearer, they feel the party could have brought his statements to the notice of the party high command.
{{/usCountry}}Party workers are aggrieved — though the state unit cannot take any action against Vijayvargiya directly as he is a national unit office-bearer, they feel the party could have brought his statements to the notice of the party high command.
{{/usCountry}}Nor are these two isolated incidents — recently, Indore MLA Sudarshan Gupta allegedly abused an officer. Food and Civil Supply minister Omprakash Dhruve recently threatened an officer in Jabalpur. Legislator Rameshwar Sharma allegedly used coarse language against the Congress in context of surgical strike. Party veteran Sartaj Singh raised a question against global investors meet by lending his voice to the Congress’s demand to the government to bring out a white paper on the global investors’ summit.
So far, party leaders seem to have chosen to overlook these incidents.
However, state BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said the party does not discriminate among workers or leaders when it comes to taking action on indiscipline. He also said there have been several instances when the party took action against senior leaders of the party.