Rajasthan BJP leader says, workers are upset with Vasundhara Raje's style of functioning
Highlights
- The BJP lost three seats to Congress in by-polls in Rajasthan this month
- A BJP leader has questioned the "style of functioning" of Vasundhara Raje
- The Rajasthan assembly election will be held later this year
After the loss in the by-elections to the two Lok Sabha seats of Ajmer and Alwar and the Assembly seat of Mandalgarh, a leader of the Bhartiya Janata Party in Rajasthan, Ashok Choudhury, has questioned the "style of functioning" of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and state party chief Ashok Parnami.
Mr Choudhary, the head of the BJP's Kota district Other Backward Classes wing, has once again, in 4 days, raked up the subject, saying he is eagerly waiting for a response to his letter, to party the president Amit Shah, on change in state BJP leadership. "I cannot expect justice from the Jaipur team but I have all my hopes stuck to the Delhi BJP team," Mr Choudhary told news agency IANS.
Two days after the BJP lost the three critical seats to Congress by a huge margin of votes, Mr Choudhary, shot off a letter to Amit Shah saying, party workers are unhappy over Vasundhara Raje's style of functioning and if the party wanted to stay in power after the Assembly elections, scheduled later in 2018, there must be a change in state leadership.
Describing the situation in Rajasthan as "grim", Mr Choudhary alleged that, if a BJP worker goes to a legislator with his problems, the legislator in turn goes to a Member of Parliament but he too has no solution and the "party worker returns empty-handed". BJP workers are told "our hands are tied up and we are unable to take it further," said Mr Choudhary.
Hitting out at the top leadership and without naming Vasundhara Raje, Mr Choudhury claimed, "time has come to end the culture of slavery and bossism in state politics." He added, "Workers are not slaves, they are hardworking hands who have elevated the party to such heights... hence it's a myth when someone says that a particular worker is of a lower rank or XYZ is belongs to a higher rank... ranking hardly makes a difference in politics."
The BJP is tight lipped about the losses in the byelections, no one has made any statement yet.
(With inputs from IANS)