The BJP which has got decent results in the recent urban local body elections - winning 308 seats - is however now facing dissent from several leaders at the district level. This follows the party Tamil Nadu state president K. Annamalai, who is also a former Indian Police Service officer, cracking the whip on district leaders and presidents to give a proper explanation about the non-performance of the party in many districts.
The party had fielded 5594 candidates for the 12,838 seats, winning 308 of them. In the Kanniyakumari district the party won 200 seats.
In a meeting held at the party state committee office in Chennai on Wednesday, the party president said that the leaders including district presidents and mandlam presidents who are not performing will have to bear the brunt for it. He added that these leaders would be axed from party positions.
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A senior party leader in Tiruchi told IANS that the "BJP is a political party which has gained ground in Tamil Nadu through hard toil, carving out a space for itself against the two major Dravidian parties. The party will not get results easily and will take time but there is a steady growth at the grassroot level and things have improved by winning in almost all the places in the state. The state president is a newcomer and he doesn't know how the party growth happens. It is not overnight and we strongly object to such a move on his part."
The BJP which has always prided itself on being a cadre-based party with proper discipline, was shocked to find several leaders speaking against the utterances of the state president.
Another senior leader said that the district presidents and mandal presidents were elected by the cadres and have time till December 2022. Removing them precipitously is not advisable.
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However, leaders close to Annamalai said that the president wanted to prepare the party for the 2024 general elections and he has to be tough with the district functionaries to get better electoral results. This section also advocates the idea that underperformers have to be booted out and those who can at least work full time at the ground level should be inducted replacing all non-performers.
Party state spokesperson Narayanan Thirupathy told IANS, "The party state president has given the district presidents full powers and his only contention was to make the mandal presidents perform and to equip the party for the next polls."
