Rajasthan: Senior BJP MLA claims Vasundhara Raje betrayed party principles, calls for her removal
Ghanshyam Tiwari said the party would be ‘wiped out from the state’ if it did not remove the current leadership under the chief minister.
Senior Rajasthan Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari has accused state Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje of betraying the party’s founding principles and has called for her removal, The Indian Express reported on Sunday. Tiwari, a five-time MLA, said the BJP would be “wiped out from the state” if it did not remove the current leadership from its position.
“The chief minister is running the state like ektantra [autocracy] and not loktantra [democracy],” Tiwari said. “BJP MLAs are protesting against her leadership in Barmer, Dungarpur and several other places,” he said, while noting that various organisations ideologically connected with the BJP, such as the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, had protested against her government.
“The organisational structure of the party has been destroyed,” Tiwari said, according to India Today. “While a meeting [of the state executive] should be held in three months, one such meeting is held in three years. The state executive was not even announced for 12 months, and the current structure runs on an ad hoc basis,” he said, he would convey his grievances to the BJP’s central leadership.
Denying the allegations, state party chief Ashok Parnami said the MLA’s accusations had “no meaning”. “The people of Rajasthan chose Vasundhara Rajeji. The party won the election with a historic mandate of 163 seats while projecting her as the CM candidate,” Parnami said. “These things [Tiwari’s accusations] have a due process, and we will certainly take action.”