Knives are out in BJP after Ghosi loss
Hugh command to send special team
Knives are out in the BJP over the humiliating defeat of party's candidate Dara Singh Chauhan from the Ghosi Assembly seat in UP in a bitter byelection last week. The party high command has decided to send a special team to Ghosi to find out reasons for the defeat by a margin of more than 42000 votes. Chauhan had quit the Samajwadi Party and Assembly seat which he had won by a margin of more than 22000 votes in 2022 and had had a one-to-one meeting with the Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
It has emerged that the BJP's local unit was against fielding Chauhan on the ground that he has been a party hopper; beginning his career with the Congress to BSP to SP and now the BJP. But the high command felt that a Ghosi win would pave the way for the disintegration of the SP before the Lok Sabha polls. The BSP had not fielded a candidate and the high command had also entered into an alliance with the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) leader Om Prakash Rajbhar hoping that Chauhan would get OBC votes.
Besides Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, State BJP president, Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak and over 20 BJP ministers chipped in for campaigning. But nothing worked and now BJP leaders admit that Chauhan’s image of frequently changing parties and also being an “outsider” had hurt the party. Some of the senior ministers privately blamed Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who did not put his heart and soul into the campaign. But this was immediately countered by saying that the campaign strategy was monitored by the BJP organisational leadership and the CM did whatever he was told to do.
In Lucknow, it is being dubbed as an indirect battle between Union home minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The BJP candidate, Dara Singh Chauhan was personally picked up by the Union Home minister. Chauhan had even attacked Yogi Adityanath for not understanding the problems of backward classes when he left the BJP to join the Samajwadi Party before the 2022 Assembly polls. The high-level team is now being sent by the BJP leadership to assess the reasons and take preventive steps for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
