BJP moves party meet to Shimla to beat Maharashtra pre-poll heat

The BJP’s chintan baithak (brainstorming session) from August 17 to 19 has already begun to generate heat. Vikas Pathak reports.

The BJP’s chintan baithak (brainstorming session) from August 17 to 19 has already begun to generate heat.

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The party has suddenly decided to shift the venue from Thane in Maharashtra to Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, where the party is in power. Ostensibly, it is to beat the heat of Thane.

“It was felt that we should shift the venue to a hill station as Thane would be hot now. So we took this decision. The dates of the chintan bhaithak remain the same,” senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said.

But there are murmurs in party circles that the reason is the possible impact the inner squabbles of the party can have on the coming polls in Maharashtra. None, of course, is willing to say it in the open.

It is believed that the BJP’s Maharashtra unit has indicated that a turbulent baithak would not be worth the risk just before polls.

The party is wary of inner squabbles being leaked to the Marathi media because this has been the trend all along after the Lok Sabha polls.

In fact, party president Rajnath Singh had to tell party leaders that “disciplinary action would automatically begin on leaders who criticised the party openly”. He, too, however, said this through the media!

But even after this, veiled articles found their way into the media.

All this seems to have made the BJP decide against holding discussions on the recent defeat in a poll-bound state.