BJP seeks to placate sulking leaders in MP

As the assembly poll in Madhya Pradesh gets closer, the ruling BJP is engaged in a massive fire fight to curb rising dissension in the state unit with many senior leaders of the party reportedly dissatisfied at being sidelined.

According to the BJP sources in Bhopal, the party’s high command has been making frantic efforts to placate these leaders, many of them senior ones, by adjusting them in different party committees and government bodies ahead of the poll.

Sources said that there were at least four dozen BJP leaders, who were not happy at being sidelined by the state unit and many of them have reportedly been in touch with the rival Congress.

The biggest problem is in the Gwallior, the bastion of former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who had rebelled and joined the BJP with around 20 MLAs leading to the fall of the then Kamalnath government in the state.

A BJP leader said that Scindia’s supporters were being ‘preferred’ over old and loyal party workers and leaders. Many leaders, who had lost to the Congress candidates in the 2018 assembly poll by slender margins, now felt that they might not get party nominations this time.

Many such leaders might be welcomed by the Congress who would be looking for winnable candidates in the region, sources said.

Besides some Scindia supporters, such as Imarti Devi, who, despite losing in the by-poll, have been accommodated in different government bodies much to the resentment of the loyal BJP leaders.

BJP sources said that the party is finding ii difficult to placate these leaders. While some of them have been adjusted in the various committees of the party, many others were still waiting to be accommodated.

Congress, in the meantime, has been trying to woo these BJP leaders and there are indications that some of them may join the party in the near future.