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JP's resounding defeat in the Bihar polls set off pre-Diwali fireworks within the party with a section of the old guard led by L K Advani demanding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his close associate, party chief Amit Shah, accept responsibility for the electoral rout.
In the first challenge to Modi and Shah since the party's spectacular victory in the 2014 LS polls, party seniors Advani, Yashwant Sinha, M M Joshi and Shanta Kumar, all sidelined in the current saffron dispensation, said the BJP parliamentary board's invocation of "collective responsibility" for the reverse was an excuse for evading responsibility.
They accused the Modi-Shah team of destroying consensual decision-making and alleged that no lessons were learnt from the fiasco of the Delhi election. Directly targeting BJP's top duo, the statement said, "The review must not be done by the very persons who have managed and who have been responsible for the campaign in Bihar."
"The principal reason for the latest defeat is the way the party has been emasculated in the last year. A thorough review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as of the way the party is being forced to kowtow to a handful, and how its consensual character has been destroyed," the signatories said, reflecting the unease in certain sections over the concentration of decision-making under the Modi-Shah duopoly.
Both Advani and Joshi opposed Modi's projection as PM candidate, with the former refusing to retreat from the ring. Joshi's unhappiness increased because he had to vacate his Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi for Modi. Advani and Joshi were not considered for positions of Speaker or in government on the ground that they were on the wrong side of the cutoff age of 75 years. They were removed from the party's top decision-making body, the parliamentary board, and put into a largely inconsequential 'margdarshak mandal'.
Bihar election: BJP elders tear into Narendra Modi and Amit Shah for Bihar poll debacle - Times of India
In the first challenge to Modi and Shah since the party's spectacular victory in the 2014 LS polls, party seniors Advani, Yashwant Sinha, M M Joshi and Shanta Kumar, all sidelined in the current saffron dispensation, said the BJP parliamentary board's invocation of "collective responsibility" for the reverse was an excuse for evading responsibility.
They accused the Modi-Shah team of destroying consensual decision-making and alleged that no lessons were learnt from the fiasco of the Delhi election. Directly targeting BJP's top duo, the statement said, "The review must not be done by the very persons who have managed and who have been responsible for the campaign in Bihar."
"The principal reason for the latest defeat is the way the party has been emasculated in the last year. A thorough review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as of the way the party is being forced to kowtow to a handful, and how its consensual character has been destroyed," the signatories said, reflecting the unease in certain sections over the concentration of decision-making under the Modi-Shah duopoly.
Both Advani and Joshi opposed Modi's projection as PM candidate, with the former refusing to retreat from the ring. Joshi's unhappiness increased because he had to vacate his Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi for Modi. Advani and Joshi were not considered for positions of Speaker or in government on the ground that they were on the wrong side of the cutoff age of 75 years. They were removed from the party's top decision-making body, the parliamentary board, and put into a largely inconsequential 'margdarshak mandal'.
Bihar election: BJP elders tear into Narendra Modi and Amit Shah for Bihar poll debacle - Times of India
