BJP today announced the much-awaited Election Committee and Core Group of Delhi unit, doing a balancing act in the process to end resentment against state president Vijay Goel ahead of the Assembly polls by appointing leaders of different factions in the two bodies.
Both the Election Committee and the Election Core Group will be headed by Goel himself.
Goel's supporters said he will have the final say in decision-making as he heads the teams but his detractors claimed that his wings have been clipped.
The Election Committee, which has 17 members and seven Special Invitees, includes V K Malhotra, O P Kohli, Mangeram Garg, Harshvardhan, Vijendra Gupta, Jagdish Mukhi, Ramesh Bidhuri, R P Singh and Pravesh Verma.
The 54-member Election Core Group has the above names as well as Madan Lal Khurana (who has been ailing for sometime), Arti Mehra, Vijay Jolly, Vani Tripathi, and Meenakshi Lekhi, among others.
BJP has given a fair representation to Punjabis, trader community and Poorvanchalis in the list.
"Goel was against forming the Election Committee and the Core Group and was virtually forced to do so. Nitin Gadkari, who is Delhi Election In-charge, met and consulted senior BJP leaders L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and party president Rajnath Singh before the team was formed," a leader from the anti-Goel camp said.
Most senior Delhi BJP leaders had issues with Goel and felt he was acting alone and not taking the party along.
Gadkari issued a statement emphasising on the "representative character" of the two committees and asking the party cadre to work collectively.
"The representative character of these important committees reflects the cohesiveness in the Delhi BJP as well as the demographic changes in the national capital," he said.
The former BJP president maintained that the party is now in election mode for the polls due in a couple of months.
"I call upon the party rank and file in Delhi to work collectively and launch an aggressive campaign against the ineffective Congress regime and expose its failure on all fronts," Gadkari said.
