Forget your woes and work for party, BJP tells cadre

In what seemed to be an admission of infighting in the party, Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay has written a letter to other leaders to “forget personal grievances” and “be united” in the run-up to Assembly elections in the Capital.

While BJP chief Amit Shah has pressed top ministers and MPs into the Delhi campaign, disenchantment over ticket distribution is believed to be harming the party’s prospects in as many as 13 seats in Delhi.

These include Najafgarh, Tilak Nagar, Hari Nagar, Madipur, Patel Nagar and even seats like Karol Bagh, Chandni Chowk, Malviya Nagar, Patpargunj and Shakur Basti, which should have ideally been a cakewalk for the party.

Besides the projection of a rank outsider such as Kiran Bedi as chief ministerial candidate, the party insiders are upset over allotment of ticket to a number of leaders who recently joined BJP.

Former Congress leader Krishna Tirath, for instance, has been allotted BJP ticket from the reserved constituency of Patel Nagar. All the four municipal councillors in this Assembly constituency belong to the BJP and none of them are reportedly cooperating with Tirath.

Similarly, in Patpargunj, the BJP has ignored the claims of its young aspirant Nakul Bharadwaj and fielded former AAP leader Vinod Kumar Binny from this east Delhi seat.

The result is a lacklustre campaign and brightening of the prospects of AAP leader Manish Sisodia, the sitting MLA from this constituency.

The Delhi BJP chief, who too was ignored in the allocation of ticket, has accordingly implored party leaders to participate in the campaign. “We will regret all our life if there is so much as a hint of listlessness from our side. We will not get another chance like this,” Upadhyay wrote in his letter. “Please forget all your personal grievances and participate fully in this exercise to build our great nation.,” he said.

Meanwhile, central leaders M Venkaiah Naidu and Nirmala Sitharaman continued their barrage of five-questions-a-day to Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP.

The BJP had declared on Thursday that till the polling day, the party will pose five questions to Kejriwal every day.

On Friday, it asked to know why the AAP has “outsourced” its campaign to “anti-national elements” and why “women are deserting AAP”.