BJP Rift Obvious by the Absence of Prominent Leaders
Patna: June 29, 2008
Cracks in the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership in Bihar, despite brave faces put up by some of its senior leaders, surfaced again on Sunday when several of its prominent leaders failed to show up at the party working committee meet in Patna just a day after the PHED Minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey walked out of a meeting feeling snubbed by party state president Radha Mohan Singh.
Despite the mandatory nature of the meeting, Choubey, Urban Development Minister Bhola Singh, Health Minister Nand Kishore Yadav, former Health Minister Chandramohan Rai, former state president Gopal Narain Singh, among many others, chose to stay away from the meeting indicating all was not well in the saffron camp in Bihar.
Radha Mohan Singh, who along with the senior BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, has been on the crosshair of the disgruntled party leaders since the first and only reshuffle in the NDA government last April, however, downplayed the leaders absence saying with a strength of 272 working members in Bihar, it was only normal that some would not attend the meeting due to prior engagements.
Party insiders, however, maintain, Choubey is still miffed at his somewhat unceremonious removal from the Urban Development ministry to the not-so-glamorous Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) and despite numerous attempts to patch up the hurt feelings, he is yet to recover from the shock displaying his sophomoric attitude while being in power.
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