Chennai, March 3 (BPNS)
The BJP which has got good results in the recent Urban local body election-winning 308 seats is however now facing dissent from several leaders of the party at the district level. This is following the party Tamil Nadu state president K. Annamalai who is also a former IPS officer cracking the whip on the district leaders including the president to provide a proper reply on the non-performance of the party in many districts.
The party had fielded 5594 candidates out of the 12,838 seats that went to polls winning 308 seats. In the Kanniyakumari district the party won 200 seats.
In a meeting held at the party-state committee office in Chennai on Wednesday, the party president said that the leaders including district presidents and mandlam presidents who are not performing will have to bear the brunt. He also said that these leaders would be axed from the party positions.
A senior leader of the party in Tiruchi while speaking to BPNS said, “BJP is a political party which has gained ground in Tamil Nadu through hard toil and carving out a space for itself fighting against the two major Dravidian parties. The party will not get results easily and will take time but there is a steady growth at the grass-root level and things have improved winning in almost all places of the state. The party-state president is a newcomer and he doesn’t know how the party growth happens. It is not overnight and we strongly object to such a move on his part.”
The BJP which has always prided itself as a cadre-based party with proper discipline was shocked to find several leaders speaking against the dictum of the state president.
Another senior leader of the saffron party said that the district presidents and mandal presidents were elected by cadres and have time till December 2022 and that removing district presidents and mandal presidents on a drop of the hat is not advisable.
However, leaders close to Annamalai said that the president wanted to prepare the party for the 2024 general elections and he has to be tough with the district functionaries to get better electoral results. This section also advocates the idea that underperformers have to be booted out and those who can at least work full time at the ground level for the party be inducted replacing all non-performers.
Party state spokesperson, Narayanan Thirupathy while speaking to BPNS said, “The party state president has given the district presidents full powers and his only contention was to make the mandal presidents perform and to equip the party for the next hustings.”
