The Hindu : New Delhi News : A divided BJP fails to corner Sheila

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 24, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

A divided BJP fails to corner Sheila

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, DEC. 23. The new leadership at the Central Bharatiya Janata Party level seems to have made little impact on the performance of the party or its leaders in Delhi. Suffering from the complex of continued rejection by the voters of the Capital, a divided BJP failed to corner the Sheila Dikshit Government inside and outside the Delhi Assembly raising serious questions about the intentions of the party and the role of its leaders in performing their job in a competent manner.

What has been the most unfortunate part of the whole story about the saffron party is that despite making a great beginning to the winter session of the Delhi Assembly, the party's struggle for the people of Delhi fizzled out from the very next day, highlighting the lack of vision and failure of the party's leadership in the Assembly. The sad part about the turn of events was that the party leaders were speaking in different voices from different fora indicating the divide within and the continued power struggle. While the BJP Legislature Party raised the issue of water tariff hike in the Assembly, its former Chief Minister, Madan Lal Khurana, preferred to charter his own course on the issue and held parallel briefings for the media. It was left to the lone Nationalist Congress Party MLA, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, to perform the role of an effective Opposition as issues raised by him put the Government in the dock.

Coming to the Leader of the Opposition, Jagdish Mukhi, it is very clear that he does not command the loyalty of all the 20 party MLAs and does not have control over them as well. The strategy worked out for conduct of the party inside the Assembly was full of flaws and indicated lack of proper political thinking. It is learnt that sharp differences exist within the Delhi BJP Legislature Party and MLAs are divided over the strategy to be adopted in the House leading to the present chaos. What has been most unfortunate is the decline in the performance of Mr. Mukhi and his continued habit of hogging the limelight on almost all the issues raised inside the House. There has been a tendency by Mr. Mukhi not to allow his party colleagues to raise matters and virtually every discussion and debate is listed in his name. Interestingly, Dr. Walia summed up the plight of Mr. Mukhi when he said had the senior Congress leader, Jag Parvesh Chandra, being alive, he would have cried his heart out over the manner in which Mr. Mukhi had degraded the position of the Leader of the Opposition. "The central BJP leadership certainly needs to look into the rot that has set in within the Delhi BJP and its legislature party. There has to be infusion of fresh faces and young blood if the party has to really function as an effective opposition, a role it has failed to perform for the past many years,'' a senior party leader remarked.

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