Sources in the BJP said Shah has set a one-month deadline for the state leaders to pull up their socks and start showing results. Image courtesy twitter.
Upset with the easy-going attitude of some of the state leaders, the BJP central leadership is understood to have decided to take up the mantle of galvanising the state unit into election mode, besides bringing in changes in its style of functioning.
BJP president Amit Shah, who chaired a meeting of 37-member political affairs committee headed by BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa on Sunday, is learnt to have expressed his displeasure over the lack of aggressiveness in the state BJP to take on the ruling Congress. He pulled up leaders for not working hard enough and also set them a deadline to show results.
Sources in the BJP said Shah has set a one-month deadline for the state leaders to pull up their socks and start showing results. Specific responsibility will be assigned to each of frontline leaders. The state unit from now on will have to constantly report to the central leadership on its activities and submit a progress report every fortnight. Shah is also learnt to have told the leaders that he will visit the state regularly from now on. His next visit to Karnataka will be in September.
According to sources privy to the political affairs committee meeting, the questions from Shah came thick and fast: “As the principal Opposition party what was done to put the ruling Congress on the mat ? How many scams in the government has the party exposed in the last four years? What has been done to increase the vote share of the party?”...The state leaders were left fumbling for answers.
Shah is understood to be upset that the state unit had not done enough to take on the government. Several issues about the Congress government had been reported, but the response from the BJP had been low-key. This is not a way the principal Opposition party should function, he is said to have told the leaders.
He said the party central leadership will not tolerate any kind of indiscipline or factional feuds. No leader should associate himself with caste-based organisations, apolitical or otherwise, Shah stated apparently referring to senior leader K S Eshwarappa’s association with Sangoli Rayanna Brigade.
The BJP chief has so far held three rounds of core committee meetings during the last two days. The process works like this: Shah during his series of meetings with various party wings, gets feed back from them and later places them back before the core committee.
He will chair another meeting of the core committee on Monday, the concluding day of his three-day visit to the state.