ELECTION 99
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Dissidence sprouts in AP BJP

Shireen in Hyderabad

Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament A Narendra has openly expressed his resentment over the party's central leadership ignoring his claim to head the party's Andhra Pradesh state unit.

Giving vent to his feelings at an informal chat with newsmen here on Friday, Narendra criticised the nomination of Chilakam Ramachandra Reddy as the new president of the BJP state unit. He warned that ignoring the leaders of backward classes and other weaker sections in the matter of organisational and governmental appointments would seriously affect the image of the party.

Narendra, one of the general secretaries of the state unit, was a strong contender for the post of BJP state president. Without naming any central leaders, he claimed that the appointment of the state unit president from a forward caste (the Reddy community) was "not only undemocratic but also smacked of the central leadership's prejudice against experienced leaders from the backward classes" like him.

The senior BJP leader, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Medak constituency in the Telangana region in the recent elections, also claimed that the rank and file of the party "are unhappy" over Ramachandra Reddy's appointment, replacing Vidyasagar Rao, who has been inducted into the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet as a minister of state for home.

Narendra's grouse is that the central leadership has shown "gross indifference and neglect" towards the weaker sections-- Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes -- who have stood by the party in successive elections. "Such an attitude is going to have an adverse impact on the party's prospects in the elections to the local bodies (panchayati raj institutions and civic bodies) early next year," he warned.

The 54-year-old Narendra said that despite the humiliation he would not quit the party but remain in it and fight against the injustice meted out to the weaker sections by the leadership. "I have been with the party, including its forerunner the Jana Sangh, for the last 37 years. I have been associated with the RSS since my childhood. I have been in the trade union movement for many years," he said.

Narendra's contention is that Ramachandra Reddy is "much junior" to him since the latter joined the BJP in 1980, after a three-year association with the Janata Party. Reddy hails from Chittoor district in the Rayalaseema region and has been residing in Madras for long.

Now that the central leadership has foisted a forward caste leader on the state unit president, the 12-member BJP legislature party in should have its floor leader from among the backward class legislators, Narendra demanded.

Tell us what you think of this report