The BJP’s “Parivartan Yatras” in Rajasthan have turned out to be a flop show. The party managers seem to have spoiled the strategy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The failure of the yatras is being attributed to BJP leaders in charge of the state Arun Singh and the organisation’s general secretary Chandrashekhar. In fact, for the last four years, only these two leaders have been giving reports on the party’s position in Rajasthan to the high command. The central leadership took all decisions in Rajasthan on the basis of their reports only.
Sources say that Singh and Chandrashekhar have the indirect backing of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Sources also said that Birla’s supporters are eyeing the Chief Minister post for their leader. They are also opening offices across the state. In fact, some senior leaders managed to convince Prime Minister Modi and Shah that the party could comfortably win the upcoming assembly election without projecting any face in Rajasthan. Therefore, the high command preferred not to project any face. Instead, the party was asked to fight under the collective leadership in the state, sources said. But the general secretary in charge of Rajasthan, Chandrashekhar and Arun Singh derailed the entire strategy. The change of leadership in the Rajasthan BJP unit was the first mistake on their part. There was no rationale behind the removal of Satish Poonia from the BJP president post. To make matters worse, Poonia was given the post of deputy leader in the assembly, which was a demotion for a leader who held the position of party president in the state for over four years. The new team also could not make an impact. According to sources, PM Modi was unhappy over the decision to relieve Poonia of the BJP chief post.
Meanwhile, the move to keep Vasundhara Raje away from state politics also proved to be counterproductive. Raje’s supporters are still hopeful that she will be given a key responsibility in days to come. The post of the Campaign Committee head is yet to be announced. The Bharatiya Janata Party managers in Rajasthan tried to repeat the experiment of Uttar Pradesh by organising parivartan yatras from four religious places against the Gehlot government. But internal politics marred these events. The decision to give charge of these yatras to Vasundhara Raje, Satish Poonia, BJP chief CP Joshi and Union Minister Gajendra Singh was changed suddenly. The responsibility was given to local leaders later on. In fact, the two senior leaders, who were to be given leading roles in the yatras, were not sure of the desired public support for the event.
There is no denying that it is the crowd of the public that is an indicator of a leader’s popularity. The planners of the yatras hurriedly changed the decision and gave charge to local leaders, fearing that their weak planning would be exposed.
The yatras which are still underway could not attract crowds so far. Recently, chairs were lying empty in two rallies. The party leadership is quite worried. The ‘chariots’ being used for yatras are also in bad condition. The responsibility for banners and posters has been given to mostly people from UP, who are not taking much interest in making arrangements. At the same time, Congress is united and getting stronger under the leadership of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. The BJP is not even in the picture as of now. As a result, BJP state leaders are looking to Shah and Modi only. They expect that after the G20 summit and special session of parliament, the high command will take action against those who have mismanaged the party programmes so far.
