LUCKNOW, JUNE 29: The BJP's poor performance in the panchayat elections could just be the beginning of trouble for Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta and state chief Om Prakash Singh.Party sources said the anti-Gupta lobby would again get together in convincing the Central leadership that the party would fare poorly in the Assembly elections next year under the Chief Minister.The party has already initiated an exercise to shore up its dwindling support base. At this juncture, the poor performance of the party in the panchayat polls would be a handy weapon for Gupta's detractors to ask for his replacement.Besides Gupta, Om Prakash Singh too will face the music if party sources are to be believed. ``How do you rate a state party chief who could not ensure a victory for his brother in the panchayat polls? He has no moral authority to continue after the party's shameful performance,'' said a senior party leader.Sources said Gupta has no grip over the administration as well as on the allies, which is why the party has been suffering for a long time. In the panchayat elections, Gupta should have convinced the allies not to field their candidates against the party nominees. What happened was exactly the opposite. The BJP-backed candidates lost at many places because the allies too had fielded their candidates.``The Chief Minister and the state party chief should at least own the moral responsibility for the debacle and quit. If they don't, the Central leadership should take the initiative and go for fresh polls after dissolving the Government,'' Ram Sharan Das, state SP chief said.``We have not performed as well as we expected to, but the party's support base is not shrinking. We were unable to deliver the message of good governance to the masses. We have already initiated the exercise and hope that results will soon be evident,'' Kalraj Mishra, PWD Minister said.The panchayat elections have given the Samajwadi Party and the BSP a shot in the arm. The BJP's hopes of improving its performance have been dashed by the rural voters (constituting 60 per cent of the electorate), who are ``unhappy'' with the Government. Among the most humiliating of defeats was the one in Prime Minister Vajpayee's constituency. The party could not win even one out of the 21 seats.The BJP has convened a meeting of senior leaders on July 5 to review the panchayat election results. Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, Surface Transport Minister Rajnath Singh, general secretary K N Govindacharya and others will be among the 60 leaders attending the meeting.The panchayat elections are not fought on party lines, but political parties claim the results are a trendsetter for the forthcoming Assembly elections. Though all the results will be available only after a few days, parties have started making conflicting claims.The Samajwadi Party claims it is leading in 50 out of the 71 districts that went for the election. BSP leaders are making similar claims.The SP has reportedly fared very well in Ferozabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Fatehpur, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Azamgarh, Gorakhpur, Ballia, Deoria, Kushinagar, Gonda, Bahraich, Barabanki, Lucknow and Badaun. In Lucknow, it has won more than half of the district panchayat seats. The SP had won in 35 district panchayats when Mulayam Singh was the Chief Minister in the SP-BSP coalition government in 1995.The BJP says it will perform better than it did in 1995. ``Let the Election Commission announce the complete results and let the district panchayat chairpersons be elected before people start assessing the results,'' said Public Works Minister Kalraj Mishra.
