BJP ticket aspirants in Bihar wary of new entrants

The realisation dawned on BJP cadres as well as the party leadership Tuesday after Bihar state election committee met to shortlist candidates for elections. The meeting in Patna chaired by BJP general secretary in charge of the state Dharmendra Pradhan, was attended by top state unit leaders – Mangal Pandey, C P Thakur, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sushil Modi, Nandkishore Yadav, Ashwini Chaubey, Giriraj Singh, Amarendra Pratap Singh, Rameshwar Chaurasia, Gopal Narain Singh, Lalbabu Prasad and state unit general secretaries among others.

Among the new entrants, former home secretary R K Singh (Ara Lok Sabha seat), former petroleum secretary R S Pandey (West Champaran) and Bhojpuri singer-actor Manoj Tiwari’s (Buxar) name formally came up for consideration Tuesday as potential candidates.

Apart from these above three, there were four other new entrants – Putul Singh (MP from Banka), Sushil Singh (Aurangabad), Om Prakash Yadav (Siwan) and Ajay Nishad, who is son of Lok Sabha MP Jai Narain Nishad (Muzaffarpur) – whose names figured as potential candidates. Sources said that the names of JDU legislators Chhedi Paswan and Birendra Kumar Choudhary who joined the BJP recently and former BSP leader Janak Chamar also figured at the meeting.

These new entrants add up to a total 10 probables from as many different seats. In addition, there are two more claimants – RJD leader Ram Kripal Yadav who will be formally joining the BJP Wednesday and JD(U) leader Renu Kushwaha who quit Nitish government Monday after her husband joined the BJP.

“BJP will get to contest all seats in the state after a long time. The 25 seats vacated by the JD(U) had given rise to hopes among party cadres in these seats. But with 10 seats going to LJP-RLSP and 12 new entrants emerging as contenders leave only three seats for BJP’s cadres as reward for their struggles,” highlighted a party leader from Bihar.

Realising this, a central office-bearer of the party sought to allay the apprehensions saying that there were merely proposals for consideration and party will strive to accommodate the party cadres aspirations.

BJP ‘vision document’ to pledge economic empowerment of Dalits

The BJP ‘Vision Docum-ent 2025’ is likely to commit the party to “balanced reforms” in labour laws and unshackling the industry of “prohibitive” labour norms.

“For the industry, the document calls for balanced reforms in labour laws to protect unorganised sector labour while ensuring they are not prohibitive for organised sector,” a party source privy to the deliberations on the vision document said.

The document, being prepared by a team spearheaded by former BJP president Nitin Gadkari, is likely to be approved by the BJP Parliamentary Board before being released. The document, which runs into 100 pages, will dwell on 40 themes relating to various aspects of political economy.

The document envisages thrust to the manufacturing sector by “addressing unfavourable input costs” at a systemic level. For example, the issue of high lending rates, high cost of capital, high energy cost, cumbersome access to natural resources, logistic bottlenecks will be re-looked, the source said. It is also likely to stress the need to dismantle the impression of prevalence of licence raj in the country.

The advocates of the vision document seek to draw inspiration from DICCI (Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry) model of economic empowerment of Dalits and tribals.

The source said there will be no direct reference to the GM crops, but the document advocates use of technology to enhance productivity.