New Delhi: After the party’s continuous streak of defeats in Assembly elections, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in multiple states have said that there is need for a more decentralised working system in the party and the party should now do away with parachuting the chosen one from the top.
A senior BJP Rajya Sabha MP told The Sunday Guardian: “When everything is going good, deficiencies are ignored and not talked about, it is only when the things start going down that people start speaking up. Ground based leaders are upset that the Delhi office is appointing people at key places without taking the state leaders into confidence. As a result of this, the appointed ones don’t give value to those who are on the ground due to which they remain cut off from the ground realities.”
The leader gave example of how, when the party was in opposition, the party would decide on appointments only after an exhaustive consultation process.
“Look at the key people who are in-charge of the states now. All of their deficiencies were hidden till now because of the Modi factor. Once it came to state polls, the realities of these leaders, who are cut off from the ground, are coming out in the open,” he added.
He gave examples of how in the party office in Delhi itself, workers who come from far off have to wait to meet these “top” men just because the top men are “busy”.
“The workers are the blood of our party. Recently in Jharkhand, a worker, who is with the party for so many years, was pushed away very rudely by a Union minister because the worker wanted to take a selfie with him. This Union minister does not have the ability to win even an Assembly election, but he had no qualms in pushing away the worker who just wanted to take a selfie so that he could show it to his friends and family. Most of our workers don’t get anything monetarily, for them selfies mean a lot,” the MP said.
According to him, it was expected that with the series of defeats in the last one year, the leadership will become more receptive to the local leaders.
“The state leadership and the CMs need to be made accountable to the organisation and the other state leaders, something that is not happening now. In Jharkhand, Raghubar Das was given total freedom that bordered on recklessness and despite the BJP leadership getting repeated complaints against him, many of which were genuine, the leadership did not intervene as he was chosen by the leadership. This kind of culture destroys the party from within,” he said.
A BJP observer said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma was not going to work when the state leadership was arrogant and cut off from the ground. “The common complaint against our leaders is that they become unresponsive and arrogant as soon as they are given some senior post. What can Modi do in this? It is the CM and his ministers who are responsible for their conduct. It is the responsibility of the people in the organisation to keep an eye on the constitutional post holders. However, those who are expected to keep an eye on the government and leaders, become habituated to the comforts of government house, helpers and cars at their disposal which the Chief Minister and the other ministers give to them, and they start ignoring the shortcomings of the people in government,” a leader said.