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Bhubaneswar: Blaming intra-party bickering for their defeat during the general elections of 2019, many BJP leaders, who were fielded as party candidates expressed their displeasure during the six-hour-long brainstorming session at the party headquarters in Bhubaneswar today.
Former MLA of Brajarajnagar Radharani Panda, who lost the recently concluded Assembly poll by 9,000 votes from her rival BJD’s Kishore Mohanty, blamed internal squabble for her defeat. She also claimed that due to some sort of unannounced arrangement between some leaders of different parties she faced the defeat.
“Definitely everyone knows about the internal bickering at some places where the party fielded candidates. There was some hidden understanding between leaders so that BJD will get one Assembly seat and BJP will get Lok Sabha constituency. This is the reason why many BJP leaders lost the poll with less vote margins,” Panda said.
Toeing similar lines, former Padampur MLA Pradip Purohit said the party has failed to turn the displeasure of people of the State against ruling-BJD into vote shares during the polls.
On the other hand, some leaders blamed misutilisation of administration by the ruling party for their defeats.
Earlier in the day, during the closed door meeting of the party’s core committee the brainstorm session was held to find out the reasons why the party candidates secured second position in 81 Assembly seats.
It is pertinent to mention that BJP candidates lost from 11 Assembly seats including Kantabanji, Parjang, Barchana, Gopalpur, Kuchinda, Kantamala, Bari, Remuna and Soro with less than 5,000 margin.
“Looking at the party’s political growth in the State, we were expecting it to be better. However, we are reviewing the results following the poll and will try to rectify the errors as early as possible,” said Prithviraj Harichandan, Odisha BJP general secretary.
Yesterday, at a function in Bhubaneswar, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had urged party leaders to not sit back until the party achieves the 120 + mission in the State.
