After the massive loss in the Bihar Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s old guard hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, demanding accountability.
The old leaders of the BJP, led by LK Advani, gathered at former party president Murli Manohar Joshi’s house in New Delhi.
Party members KN Govindacharya and Arun Shourie were also present at the meeting.
To say everyone should be responsible for Bihar defeat is to say no one should be held responsible.BJP Old Guard’s Statement
The team of senior BJP members comprised LK Advani, MM Joshi, Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha.
According to the letter, displayed on various television news channels, the old guard has demanded the establishment of a committee to look into the accountability of the Bihar election result.
A thorough review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as of the way the Party is being forced to kowtow to a handful, and how its consensual character has been destroyed.BJP Old Guard’s Statement
The committee which will review the BJP’s Bihar campaign, it read, will not have anyone involved or responsible for the campaign.
The move comes close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United Kingdom and on the day of major Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) reforms.
Former Party President LK Advani as well as his one-time rival and HRD minister in the Vajpayee cabinet, Murali Manohar Joshi, had been made part of the Margdarshak Mandal (path finding committee) in 2014. Shanta Kumar, a former Himachal Pradesh chief minister and Yashwant Sinha were also part of the meeting.
LK Advani had threatened to resign from all party posts when Narendra Modi was declared the NDA’s PM candidate before the general elections in 2014.
The old guard has been on the margins of Indian politics since the BJP’s landslide victory in 2014, with new leaders taking the top posts in the party. Now, with the party’s defeat in Bihar, they seem to have sensed an opportunity to attack Amit Shah and more indirectly, the Prime Minister. Whether or not such a move will find support within the party remains to be seen.
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