The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Kerala leadership is understood to have drawn flak for its alleged ineptness in handling the Assembly Speaker election and lapses in evolving a clear strategy for its lone MLA O. Rajagopal in the Assembly.
A leadership meeting held here on Sunday to review the election results pointed out the gaping holes in the party strategy and accused the State leadership of failing to function effectively than justifying Mr. Rajagopal’s decision to vote for Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate P. Sreeramakrishnan.
The brass is reported to have expressed its inability in setting a course for a senior leader such as Mr. Rajagopal.
However, the participants insisted that a similar situation should not recur and a panel comprising State president Kummanam Rajasekharan, two other leaders as well as Mr. Rajogopal should be constituted to iron out the party strategy in the Assembly and also give cues to Rajya Sabha members of the party from Kerala, sources said.
Despite the party winning a seat and emerging runner-up in seven segments, the candidates as well as leaders who participated in the meeting were reported to have pointed out the glaring lapses in the functioning of mandalam and district committee members who were in charge of the segments.
‘Lack of support’
Most of them complained about the partisan manner in which the office-bearers functioned and flayed the lack of support to debutants who were pushed into the fray sans thorough preparation.
Though the national leadership has warned against schism, such strictures have not percolated to the grassroots-level and this has affected the distribution of election funds and also deployment of State-level leaders for campaigning. Since all the State leaders who were part of the election committee, were in the fray, they could not intervene from time to time and take remedial measures, the candidates complained. Reorganisation of the district and mandalam committees by July end has also been mooted. A regular meeting of general secretaries which used to be held once in three weeks has become rather irregular. It had been decided to revive the meetings, sources said.
Representative of the national leadership who attended the meeting asked the candidates to nurse the constituencies from where they contested to brighten their prospects for the future. They were advised to take a clue from former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh who used to visit his segment regularly even after a thorough setback for bettering the chances of the party in the State, sources said.
