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Leadership change in Madhya Pradesh : Uma Bharti calls truce |
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The BJP was faced with another crisis last week with a large number of party legislators in Madhya Pradesh meeting top leaders to press for a change of Chief Minister in the state. They wanted Babu Lal Gaur to be replaced by the firebrand woman leader Uma Bharti. As a result of the goings on in the party, Uma Bharti did not go to Bihar to campaign in the first phase of the Assembly elections there. But midway through the week, party general secretary Arun Jaitely was able to persuade Uma Bharti to return to the campaign trail in Bihar and also to tone down her campaign against Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Babu Lal Gaur. She is reported to have been assured that the issue of change of guard in Madhya Pradesh will be taken up by the party between November 18 and 26, after the Bihar polls are over.
Jaitley, who is in charge of Madhya Pradesh as well as Bihar, spoke to Bharti several times. The party, he said, needed her for the Bihar campaign and dispelled any misgivings she might have had about the BJP top brass being “against her.”
Pacified by the promise, Uma Bharti agreed to resume her tour of Bihar from October 22 and asked MLAs backing her to go back to their constituencies. She told Jaitley that she wanted to correct the impression that she was orchestrating a campaign for her return as Chief Minister. She said she only wanted the “ineffective” Babu Lal Gaur to be replaced by someone other than Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan, state party chief in Madhya Pradesh. Her preference was for OBC leader Gauri Shankar Shejawar, she said.
Jaitely conceded that she had a point and that the BJP was not indifferent to the ground reality in the state and would not let “injustice” be done to her.
Hectic parleys, meanwhile, continued at Bharti’s residence and the state BJP headquarters in Bhopal. Around 40-odd MLAs met at her home for about an hour - the number significantly less than the touted 136 - and left the venue in a sombre mood.
A Minister from the Bharti camp, however, pointed out that since they have got Delhi to agree to their demand, not all the Ministers and MLAs supporting Bharti chose to attend the meeting. Otherwise, the number would have crossed 100.
Earlier on Tuesday, October 18, a number of dissident MLAs, including several state Ministers met former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and party president L.K. Advani to press for change of leadership in Madhya Pradesh. They are understood to have handed over a letter signed by 106 MLAs, drawing attention towards what it called growing resentment against Babu Lal Gaur. Party sources said that senior ledgers advised the dissident MLAs to refrain from public display of their defiance.
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