Bickering in the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party has resurfaced at a time when the party in Delhi is gearing up for the general elections and is grappling with key issues such as the ongoing sealing drive. Loyalists of the incumbent party chief, Manoj Tiwari and former Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel are at loggerheads over various issues.
While strife between different factions is not new to Delhi BJP, differences between BJP MPs in Delhi and Tiwari have also come out in the open. This became evident when four of Delhi’s seven MPs were conspicuous by their absence during the recent executive meeting of the party’s state unit. Apart from Tiwari, who is the MP from North East Delhi, only New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi and North West Delhi MP Udit Raj attended the meeting on the first day, while South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri attended the meeting on the second day.
Well-placed sources said that Union Minister Vijay Goel, whose differences with Tiwari are well-known, skipped the first day of the meeting, but attended the concluding session where he criticised the state unit leadership for failing to address the issue of sealing. He reportedly also disapproved of the recent controversy where Tiwari broke the seal of a property. A senior leader told The Sunday Guardian that Goel reprimanded Delhi BJP office bearers for “brainstorming in the comfort of their offices” and said that their disconnect with the masses would hamper BJP’s poll prospects.
Sources close to Tiwari also said that a number of BJP office bearers, including general secretary Kuljeet Chahal, were tasked with organising the Purvanchal Mahakumbh on 23 September, but poor management resulted in a small turnout during the rally, which was addressed by party president Amit Shah himself.
A number of leaders from Punjabi, Baniya and Jat communities in Delhi BJP have been opposed to the elevation of Tiwari—who belongs to Bihar—as state unit president. His appointment had also irked leaders who considered themselves senior to Tiwari and dubbed him as an “outsider” to Delhi politics. Parvesh Verma, who is the son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma and has many supporters in the Jat community, feels that he has been sidelined. Similarly, Dr Harsh Vardhan is also not pleased with the affairs of the party in Delhi.
According to BJP leaders, the two-day state executive meeting, held immediately after the BJP’s national executive meeting in Delhi, was called to discuss and implement the roadmap laid by the central leadership for the coming elections. “The idea was to deliberate upon the strategies and find a workable roadmap for propagating the Centre’s achievements. Countering the AAP in Delhi was another key agenda of the meeting,” a party leader said.
Union Minister and Chandni Chowk MP Dr Harsh Vardhan, East Delhi MP Maheish Girri and West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma skipped the meeting on both days. Sources said Verma is miffed with the state unit leadership after he, along with the Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Vijender Gupta, was not backed during their protest at the Delhi Secretariat. While the two leaders sat on a protest against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who had laid siege at the Lieutenant Governor’s house, this did not go well with party president Amit Shah who pulled them up for sharing stage with AAP defector Kapil Mishra.