Lotus yet to cope with loss, grassroots drying up in UP

The party got 36.49 per cent votes in 1998 Lok Sabha elections, fetching 57 seats while it dwindled to 27.64 per cent with 29 seats in 1999. The worst were the recent polls with 20.73 per cent votes with a tally of just 10 seats.

‘‘The BJP’s vote share has been sliding since 1998. Yet, no attention was paid to ground realities. We are only left with 10 seats now. Some drastic measures will have to be taken to ensure improvement in the present set-up,’’ claimed the senior BJP leader and former state president Om Prakash Singh.

The strength of the party’s state office-bearers is 15. Of these, three, including the party president Vinay Katiyar, were busy getting themselves elected (but lost) to the LS while two secretaries — Poornima Verma and Mathura Pal — quit the party ahead of the polls, leaving the responsibility of supervising elections to ‘‘miniatures” in the party.

‘‘We suffered because a host of outsiders and junior office-bearers were tipped to oversee the elections. It resulted in total lack of direction to party workers from the state party office,” said a senior party leader.

‘‘We accept the defeat and are now preparing for an intensive review of the reasons responsible for it,’’ said Kalyan Singh, the chairman of the BJP’s election committee in the state.

A group of Thakur legislators have been openly revolting against the BJP leadership for over a year now. But the BJP could muster courage to expel five of them as late as last month, while four more — including Sarvesh Singh and Kovid Kumar Singh — who openly campaigned in favour of SP nominees in recent polls, haven’t been expelled.

‘‘We are intensely reviewing the situation. Though I have the details on my mind, I will not spell them out now,’’ said Singh when reminded of party rebels still being part of the BJP’s legislature wing.