nSwords are out in Tamil Nadu BJP following the failure of the party to win at least one Lok Sabha seat in the State in the recently held Lok Sabha elections. While a senior leader of the party has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for an urgent overhaul of the party in the State, another senior leader blamed the ineffectiveness of the leaders in countering the DMK-led Opposition’s anti-Modi campaign.
“In Tamil Nadu there was a strong anti-Modi campaign unleashed and fanned by the DMK and other Tamil outfits. They were united in harping for the past four years that Modi is pro-corporate and anti farmer," said Kaattumannarkoil Kannan, leader, Kisan Morchha, in a letter to the Prime Minister, a copy of which was accessed by The Pioneer.
The essence of Kannan’s letter us that the present leadership of the BJP has proved their incapacity and inefficiency in winning any election. He states that though the BJP-led Government at the Centre brought in a number of pro-poor programmes and pro-farmer policies, the BJP’s Tamil Nadu leaders failed miserably in explaining it to the people of the State.
Kannan says in his letter that the BJP should not have aligned with either of the the dravidan parties viz, the DMK and AIADMK. "Both the parties are tainted and tarnished. These two parties have been looting Tamil Nadu for the past 50 years. If you make raids against both party leaders you can unearth huge money," says Kannan who was recently in the news for authoring the book “River Cauvery , The Most Battled”.
He points out that the integrity of the Tamil Nadu BJP took a beating for the worse following the seizure of three containers packed with currency notes worth Rs 570 crore during the 2016 assembly election. “Some connected houses were raided but after that there was no action,” he says.
According to Kannan, the central leadership of the BJP should take into confidence the farming community in the State as TN is an agricultural economy. “Not a single farmer has voted for the BJP this time,” he said when asked about the reason behind the failure of the BJP.
Kannan also wanted the central leadership to order a thorough overhaul and revamp of the party in the State and appoint a farmer as the State party chief. The words of Kannan were echoed by Arjun Sampath, leader of the Hindu Makkal Katchi. “The present and past leaders of Tamil Nadu BJP should make way for new faces as they had proved their incapability. The party whih could poll 19 per cent votes in the 2014 parliament election had to content with just 3.5 per cent. Tamilissai Sounderarajan, the State BJP president was trounced by a margin of 3,47,209 votes, while former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan lost by 2,60,000 votes. H Raja, th national secretary , lost by 3, 32,244 votes to tainted Karti Chidambaram of the Congress. The BJP should introspect why these leaders were defeated by such huge margins,” said Arjun Sampath. He said he had spoken to the national leadership about the state of affairs in Tamil Nadu BJP.
Interestingly, the ire of the party cadre has also been directed against the high profile P Muraleedhar Rao , the secretary in charge of the State. “Please do an audit about his contributions towards the BJP .That will reveal the whole story,” said a second-rung leader based in Chennai.
