Learn from mistakes and move on: Barala to partyworkers

The two-day meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, held in Gurugram to review the reasons for the party’s inability to cross the halfway mark in the

The two-day meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, held in Gurugram to review the reasons for the party’s inability to cross the halfway mark in the recently held assembly elections, concluded on Saturday with the message —learn from mistakes and move on.

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Attended by about 450 executive committee members, the meeting was chaired by party state president Subhash Barala and attended by BJP national general secretary and state affairs incharge Anil Jain, organisational secretary Suresh Bhatt, chief minister Manohar Lal Kataria, central ministers Krishan Pal Gurjar, Rao Inderjit Singh, Ratan Lal Kataria besides almost the remaining MPs, all MLAs, former MPs and MLAs. The marathon meeting which began around 10 am continued till evening without any break.

Though senior party and former Rajya Sabha member Birender Singh was conspicuous by his absence, his son Brijendra Singh, who is MP from Hisar, and his mother Prem Lata, who had lost to Jannayak Janta Party leader Dushyant Chautala from Uchana Kalan, attended the meeting. The party’s national secretary and former MP Sudha Yadav also could not attend the meeting because of the demise of her mother.

Most of the leaders who addressed the meeting, including Barala, Jain, Khattar and education minister Kanwar Pal and Karnal MP Sanjay Bhatia, referred to the party’s failure to achieve its target of 75 plus seats, however, they also exhorted the members to learn from mistakes and keep on moving. They also held that though the BJP could not win an absolute majority, its vote share had increased by over 3.5% compared to that of 2014 polls. They said that though party workers put in hard work, it did not show in the results. A resolution thanking voters for making BJP the largest party was also passed at the meeting. Barala also exhorted the workers to learn from mistakes and move on.

They also referred to the coalition government and highlighted the previous alliances with different parties at the national as well as state-level. They highlighted how the BJP, which had hardly any presence in the state formed government in the state on its own in 2014 and now came to power for the second term and had MLAs in all the parts of the state.

ORGANISATIONAL ELECTIONS

The executive committee also finalised the schedule of the party’s organisational elections according to which all the booth-level committees would be elected between December 15 and December 25, following which the booth committees would elect mandal presidents by January 15. Between January 15 and January 25, the mandal committees would elect district presidents which subsequently elect the state president in February.