‘Faction fighting between some leaders resulted in our fourth position,’ said a BJP leader.
NEW DELHI: After losing the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll this month, the BJP has recently announced that they will go all alone on 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.
The Jalandhar bypolls were seen as an important test before the 2024 general elections. The AAP won the Jalandhar (SC) seat with a margin of 58,691 votes. Once considered a fortress of the Congress, the results have put the grand old party’s fate in the state in question. This was the BJP’s second election alone after the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) parted ways with the saffron party. According to BJP leaders and workers who went on the ground for the Jalandhar bypolls, there are various reasons behind the party’s bad performance.
AAP candidate Sushil Rinku polled 3,02,279 votes, while Congress’ Karamjit Kaur secured 2,43,588, as per the data of the Election Commission. Shiromani Akali Dal candidate Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi, who was also backed by the Mayawati-led BSP, was in the third spot with 1,58,445 votes, while BJP nominee Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal was in the fourth position with 1,34,800 votes.
According to a BJP functionary from the region, the internal rift between the leaders brought from Congress and Akali Dal and old leaders associated with BJP is one of the reasons behind bad coordination. “Faction fight between some leaders has resulted in our fourth position,” said a BJP leader. It was also seen that former MP Vijay Sampla and BJP general secretary Rajesh Bagga were not on the same page. “Many leaders like Surjit Jyani, Vineet Joshi, Arun Narag and Vijay Sampla were seen silent in the campaigning phase,” said a BJP leader. According to sources inside Punjab BJP, Punjab BJP unit president Ashwani Sharma and general secretary organisation Srinivas were also not on the same page. “Srinivas wanted the Bains brothers from Ludhiana to join the party before polls, but Ashwani Sharma didn’t agree to this and later Bains brothers were asked to back BJP,” the BJP leader said. Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) founded by the Bains brothers offered support to the BJP. “This issue has created a rift between two main leaders of the state unit,” added the BJP leader.
The Jalandhar Lok Sabha consists of nine Assembly segments and in the 2022 Assembly elections, BJP got 1,30,000 votes from all nine Assembly constituencies, but in the recent Lok Sabha bypolls, the BJP got 1,34,000 votes. Curbing infighting and establishing coordination between old BJP workers and new joiners from other parties is a big challenge for Punjab BJP before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.