BJP campaigners afraid people will slam door on their face

The sentiment was amply vocalised during many of the BJP executive committee’s eight meetings of party MLAs, municipal councillors and senior party leaders to prepare for the elections.

The party has devised an elaborate strategy to control the damage to the government’s image due to the recent spurt in crime. The door-to-door campaign is one of its vital components.

Party workers have been asked to “assuage the feelings of citizens by personally addressing their problems and highlighting the positive aspects of their five-year governance by word of mouth or through distribution of pamphlets.”

The workers have, however, said the public was in no mood to listen to their self-eulogies, but wanted respite from the present chaos as their immediate problems were overwhelming. Senior party leaders, too, admit that the situation, if allowed to continue even for a few more weeks, could seriously mar the party’s chances of a second term.

“The Jats and Sikhs, who formed a considerable chunk of the BJP’s vote bank, are gradually being alienated. The BJP never had a Muslim vote bank. But now, even a sizable number of middle-class Hindus, the `punjabis’ in particular who form the party’s vote bank, have become disenchanted,” is how a senior party leader sums up the situation, while requesting anonymity.

The organisational differences within the party, too, are now coming to the fore as a large number of MLAs, councillors and other workers are believed to have expressed lack of trust in the present leadership. In a democratic set-up, they argue, how can they be led by somebody who does not enjoy a mass support base and “has not won a single election at the municipal assembly or legislative assembly level.”

State party president Mange Ram Garg, in a note to sent to all the party workers last fortnight, had asked them to fill up and send the yellow cards to his office by August 10. These cards were given to them to fill in all the details of the party’s local committees in various localities and their members etc to facilitate their overhaul. The party plans to organise meetings of committees falling in each zone between 16 to 25 August, when these differences are likely to come out in the open.

The party MLAs and municipal councillors feel that one way to redeem the situation would be to effect immediate changes at the party, government and the administrative level. “There is an urgent need to check the rampant corruption in the administration in general and make the DVB administration more public-oriented and efficient” the party leaders had stressed during the meeting last week, adding that a big chunk of resources lying at the government’s disposal needed to be utilised within the next three months.

Mange Ram Garg, when contacted today, however, dismissed all reports of the party workers’ reservations about the campaigns, saying that the overall situation had dramatically improved during the past three days and the public will eventually forget the recent reports and give the BJP another chance at the hustings.

“We are distributing registers to all the block-level party units and asking them to go to people and take down their problems. The party-administration contact has already improved a great deal and we have vowed to get their grievances redressed,” he added.

Chief Minister Sahib Singh, on his part, too maintained that the recent shake up in the administration was aimed at improving the efficiency of the public agencies and make the bureaucrats more accountable.