BJP old hands boycott rally, seek equal space

PATIALA: Widening the rift between the BJP’s old and new cadre, some of the former have boycotted Friday’s Patiala rally where Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya and former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh will speak.
The new workers are the former Congressmen who had entered the Punjab Lok Congress behind Amarinder for the 2022 state elections and then merged with the BJP.Six months ago, the old BJP cadre in Patiala had even ordered flex signs without the pictures of Captain’s group before the visit of Union home minister Amit Shah.
After tweeting on Thursday that “party’s old cadre feels ignored”, BJP’s Patiala urban unit vice-president Varun Jindal told TOI that: “We demand equal space in the Patiala BJP, but the merged PLC cadre has grabbed 70% of it, which is unacceptable to those who led all the old campaigns. I am among 50 of these people such as former mayor Jagdish Chaudhary and Seema Sharma who won’t go to Friday’s rally.”
This January, BJP’s old Patiala cadre had decried a list of designations favouring Amarinder’s group and demanded removal of the incumbent district president. However, many of the old hands such as SK Dev have accepted the high command’s decision. Patiala BJP president K K Malhotra of Captain’s group said: “The old cadre is with us and no resentment has come to my notice. We are ready for the rally.”
Amarinder served the Congress for years, being its chief minister for more than 9 years before the unceremonious exit in September 2021. He had floated the PLC after being forced to resign and contested elections in alliance with the BJP, but lost even his own bastion of Patiala Urban to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Last September, he merged his party into the BJP, and a day later, 26 of his loyal municipal councillors from Patala joined him.