6 BJP office bearers face action for ‘anti-party activities’ during Rajinder Nagar bypoll

Delhi BJP general secretary Harsh Malhotra said the action has been taken as their participation was not up to the mark. A senior BJP leader said this was to send a strong message to those who indulge in “anti-party activities” or do not participate in elections with an intent to sabotage the chances of the party candidate.

AAP’s Durgesh Pathak had won the bypoll, defeating BJP’s Rajesh Bhatia by a margin of 11,468 votes. AAP managed to secure 55.78% of the votes.

Disciplinary committee head Jai Bhagwan Aggarwal said the six were removed from the posts.

Some of the leaders who faced action were also ticket aspirants. Purvanchal morcha state vice-president Sonia Sinha, who was a ticket aspirant and among those removed from her post, said, “I worked very hard for the party, maybe they would not have noticed it, but my intent has never been wrong. My whole family has an RSS background… we cannot even think of doing anything against the party.”

A senior BJP leader said, “For a long time, we had been seeing that the moment a candidate is declared on a seat, those aspiring for it get into sabotage mode. The party has decided to end this problem and action has been taken. The central leadership also wanted the matter to be investigated and an example set. Names of some seniors have also surfaced, and they might face action in coming times.”

He said that during the inquiry, it was found that if all party leaders would have actively campaigned, the election results would have been different or at least the vote margin would have been less as there was anti-incumbency against AAP in the constituency due to water shortage.

“The voting percentage was low even in areas where some of these leaders lived, which means they did not actively take part in bringing out our voters from their homes. Voter turnout was high in areas where AAP was strong,” he said.