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New Delhi: Incorrect ticket allocation, discord among leaders and over-confidence were among the major reasons for the BJP’s defeat in the bypolls in Himachal Pradesh held on October 30, a review meeting of the party has found.
The party prepared 12 review reports for the by-elections to four seats in Himachal – Mandi parliamentary seat and assembly constituencies Arki, Fatehpur and Jubbal-Kotkhai. candidate, minister in charge and Mandal initials (Mandal President) prepared one report each from each constituency.
According to BJP sources aware of the news, there is displeasure among the workers due to ticket distribution, while the party has also failed to find out. range of popular sympathy To the widow of Virbhadra Singh, the six-time Chief Minister of the state and Congress leader.
The entire local party organization revolted in support of a rebel candidate due to the “wrong allocation” of the Jubbal-Kotkhai assembly seat, sources said, adding that “inaction of some party leaders” in the election was also a factor. was cited as
All the four elections were held due to the death of the sitting MLAs. Arki and Fatehpur were occupied by Congress, while Jubbal-Kotkhai and Lok Sabha seats were held by BJP MLAs. The BJP lost all four, making Himachal Pradesh the only party-ruled state where it failed to win any seats in the by-elections. Moreover, his candidate got only 4 per cent votes in Jubbal-Kotkhai.
Analyzing the reasons for the defeat, the state BJP conducted a post-mortem of its performance in several meetings held in Shimla from November 24 to 26.
These reports were discussed in the five-hour-long meeting of the core group. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, BJP state president Suresh Kashyap, former chief ministers Prem Kumar Dhumal and Avinash Rai Khanna, who has been made in-charge of Himachal affairs by the party, were present. The next day the minister in charge of the state government joined him.
“Several things have come to the fore during this review process which shows the complete lack of coordination between the organization and the government,” Khanna said. “We have to keep all this in mind. Only then will we be able to win the 2022 election.”
The next state assembly election is scheduled for November 2022.
Read also: Himachal BJP vice-president Kripal Parmar resigns, saying- ‘party being run like dictatorship’
‘Wrong candidate, sympathy vote, organizational problems’
A report from Chief Minister Thakur’s own constituency in Mandi cited ticket allocation to Brigadier Khushal Thakur (Retd) as the reason for losing the Lok Sabha seat. Sources quoting reports said that the Kargil veteran had no support base in the region and hence could not ensure an edge even in his home village, Nagwain.
According to the report, if someone from the cadre had contested the same election as the late MP Ramswaroop Sharma, he could have got a lead of 10,000-15,000 votes in his constituency.
Similarly, minister in charge of Kullu Govind Singh Thakur and Lahaul minister and MLA Ram Kal Markanda were unable to give leads in their areas, which fall within the Mandi constituency, the report said.
At the same time, the BJP feels that it has failed to understand the extent of public sympathy for Pratibha Singh, the winning Congress candidate in Mandi. Her husband, former chief minister Virbhadra Singh, died in July (the start of the Arki by-election). Both husband and wife have been MPs from Mandi many times over the years.
The BJP also faced organizational challenges in the constituency.
In some areas, as per the constituency report, page head (worker in charge of a page of the voter list), and those in charge of the booth failed to mobilize voters. NS board presidentThe U.S. report stated that they did not receive the necessary support from corporators in urban areas, while rural workers could not convince people that the government in power worked for them.
The report concluded that the party organization was also unable to communicate the benefits of various government schemes for scheduled castes.
According to a leader who attended a meeting, “The discontent among the workers was about allotting tickets to wrong candidates, but more than that, there was a huge disconnect between the government and the organisation.
“Only the chief minister was working hard – the people of the organization were in deep sleep. This meant that the common employees were angry with the government. Not everyone was taken along.”
A report noted that conflicting statements of senior leaders and interactions with the family of senior Congress leader, former Union minister and former Mandi MP Sukh Ram also affected the morale of the workers.
Sukhram’s son, BJP MLA from Mandi Anil Sharma – who is bypassed BJP sources said that since his son had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for the Congress, he joined hands with former state minister and Congress leader Kaul Singh Thakur to support the Congress candidate. According to him, Sharma did not campaign for the BJP and “silently supported the Congress”.
‘Bitterness between party and government, rebel leader’
A similar situation was assumed for the Arki assembly seat as well.
As per internal assessment, sources said, the party’s defeat was because it had selected the wrong candidate, due to the inability of the official candidate to communicate with the workers, and the absence of former MLA Govind Ram Sharma and district panchayat member Asha. reason. Avoidance campaign.
Both the leaders are influential in the constituency and were opposing the selection of Ratan Singh Pal as the party’s candidate.
Sharma wanted a ticket for himself. A BJP leader said, “Had he been given a ticket, he could have won the election quite comfortably. But his candidature was rejected based on the recommendations of Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey. Organisation minister (BJP General Secretary, Organisation) Pawan Rana. The rebel leaders did not campaign in favor of the party, which ultimately led to our loss.
Similarly, denying ticket to former BJP state vice president Kripal Parmar – who resigned from his post on Tuesday – led to his decision not to support the party. This is believed to have contributed to the defeat in Fatehpur, with former BJP MP and MLA Rajan Sushant contesting as an independent candidate.
A BJP general secretary told ThePrint, “There was a lot of outrage in the organization overall, and we had to pay the price for great anger among our workers, allotting tickets to the wrong candidates, and not taking everyone along. It was like a big alarm bell for us.
“If we do not manage to quell the displeasure of the workers before the assembly elections, then our ship is bound to sink.”
The review report will now be sent to the BJP high command. After this, according to the leaders, changes are set to take place in the state organisation, board, corporation and state cabinet. Sources said the high command is not in a mood to take the defeat lightly and knows that a few minor changes will not work.
(Edited by Rohan Manoj)
Read also: BJP’s ‘All is Well’ in the National Executive is ignoring the main problems of the party
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