A core group of the Bharatiya Janata Party, formed to address infighting and factionalism in the party’s Rajasthan unit, met here on Tuesday to highlight the Congress government’s “failure” on all fronts and deliberate on the strategies for the upcoming Assembly by-elections for four seats. The 16-member group includes former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje as its member.
The meeting, which was held a day before the budget was scheduled to be presented in the Assembly, took the decisions for holding the sessions of the party’s working committees, celebrating the BJP’s foundation day on April 6 and undertaking a campaign against the Congress government at the tehsil level from March 6 to 14.
The core group met under the shadow of a letter written by about 20 party MLAs, considered close to Ms. Raje, to party’s State president Satish Poonia complaining of being ignored in the Assembly. Significantly, the Opposition BJP has no Chief Whip in the House.
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Ms. Raje, who had skipped the core group’s first meeting on January 24, attended Tuesday’s meeting and gave suggestions for strengthening the party at the grassroots level by mobilising public opinion.
BJP national general secretary and State in-charge Arun Singh, who attended the meeting as a special invitee, told reporters that party workers would expose the ruling Congress by highlighting its failure to fulfil the promises of complete farm loan waiver and disbursement of unemployment allowance.
Mr. Singh said the benefits of the Centre’s agriculture sector laws, which would facilitate doubling of farmers’ income, would be explained to cultivators in the rural areas. “The Congress is anti-farmers. In a State like Rajasthan, the Congress government has failed to enforce crop insurance and extend the benefits of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana,” he said.
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Nadda’s visit
BJP president J.P. Nadda would visit Jaipur on March 2 to attend a meeting of the party’s newly formed State executive, he said. The dates for the Assembly bypolls in Rajsamand, Sujangarh, Vallabhnagar and Sahara, necessitated by the death of one BJP and three Congress MLAs, are yet to be announced.