 "BJP leaders")
While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership remains clearly divided on the growing popularity of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi with the cadre, a strong section within the party believes the time has come for the party to take decisive action and send a clear message to supporters.
The division within the party has annoyed leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who believe that it could lead to further trouble as elections are due in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan later in the year and Lok Sabha election is only twelve months away.
It is expected that BJP’s upcoming national executive will focus on differences between senior leaders of the party in the state and at the centre.
“The popularity of Narendra Modi is rising. We cannot continue to tell our party workers that a decision will be taken in a few months after every national executive. We expect that national executive in Goa will be used to give a clear message,” said a senior BJP leader.
Senior members of the BJP pointed that the 2014 elections will the first general election for the party where the decision on the Prime Ministerial candidate will not be taken by the central leadership because it has already been decided by the party cadre.
Some of the central BJP members are of the view that the only job left for the BJP leadership is to announce the name of the Prime Ministerial candidate.
Even though BJP leaders are defending the statement of LK Advani in Gwalior where he compared Shivraj Singh Chouhan to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, party President Rajnath Singh had to come out to clear the air that Modi was “the most popular leader of BJP.”
“The debate over election campaign committee that is expected to be led by Narendra Modi and election management committee under Nitin Gadkari is of not much importance. There cannot be too many committees. There will only be election campaign committee,” the BJP leaders added. BJP President Rajnath Singh is not keen to form a new election management committee under Gadkari.
Apart from the division in BJP at the national level, party members elaborated that even RSS members are worried because the party has two parallel power centres in Madhya Pradesh where Prabhat Jha and Uma Bharati are on one side and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on the other.
The situation is same in Rajasthan where BJP leaders are attacking Vasundhara Raje and even in Delhi, state party President Vijay Goel is being boycotted by BJP members led by Vijay Kumar Malhotra.
“Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan are preparing for assembly election but there are different power centres that are challenging the authority of state BJP Presidents or chief minister. Leaders are worried that it will only work against the party,” said the BJP leader.
