As the exhilaration over induction of Bahujan Samaj Party’s rebel leader Swamy Prasad Maurya into Bharatiya Janata Party fades, the saffron outfit has begun to absorb an uncomfortable truth – the development has touched off an intense tussle in the party’s core team in Uttar Pradesh.
The issue has assumed such a serious proportion that it remained unresolved even in the closed door meeting the BJP president Amit Shah held with the party’s core team on Tuesday.
That Assembly elections are due in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 makes the issue all the more urgent. The BJP’s top state officials who participated in the meeting with Shah included the state president Keshav Prasad Maurya, national general secretary in charge of the state Om Mathur and state general secretary in charge of organisation Sunil Bansal.
The meeting, that was aimed at reviving the internal cohesion in the party’s core team, could not yield any substantial result because of the continuing distrust and complete lack of coordination between Keshav Prasad Maurya and Mathur, party officials said.
Bihar model
The tussle between the two top leaders in the state has been raging ever since Mathur bypassed Keshav Prasad Maurya's reservations and decided – reportedly at the behest of Shah – to induct the former BSP leader in the party, party officials maintained.
Swamy Prasad Maurya, who had left the BSP after levelling a series of allegations about selling party tickets against party chief Mayawati, joined the BJP on August 8.
Keshav Prasad Maurya was against the idea of letting the BSP leaders join the BJP, his supporters said. Keshav Prasad Maurya, his supporters suggest, wanted the BJP to treat the BSP leader the way it had treated Jitan Ram Manjhi in Bihar. Manjhi had formed his own party – Hindustani Awam Morcha – after leaving the Janata Dal-United, and contested the Assembly elections in the state as an ally of the BJP.
Such a move could have gone a long way in galvanising Maruyas of UP in favour of the National Democratic Alliance in the Assembly elections due in early next year, a BJP leader close to Keshav Prasad Maurya said.
In the end, however, Mathur prevailed and, rejecting the suggestions of Keshav Prasad Maurya, facilitated Swamy Prasad Maurya’s entry into the BJP.
“It is difficult to say what we have gained by making Swamy Prasad Maurya join the party,” the Keshav Prasad Maurya loyalist said. “The party hoped to get a momentum on the ground, but it has achieved the opposite.”
The tussle has grown and has blocked the party leadership from assigning any responsibility to Swamy Prasad Maurya, who is still feeling out of place in the BJP.