Early on Thursday, BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha rubbished claims that he said that the Bihar election results would be better had he been projected as the Chief Ministerial candidate in Bihar. Instead, he said that his statement was, “”Things could have been different if he was called for campaigning.”
“Media tried to create an impression that I had suggested that results could have been different if I was the CM candidate. I have never said this.” He added that he had expected to be the chief ministerial candidate. However, he justified his derivation from the results that his participation in the campaigning would have made a difference to the number of seats that the BJP won. Quoted the actor-turned politician, “I am not a Rajya Sabha MP. I’ve come through the support of masses and won 2 Lok Sabha elections with record margin. I have a support base.”
This had angered certain other party members, especially Kailash Vijayvargiya, the party campaign manager in Bihar and a General Secretary, who, in his aggravated reply to the veteran actor, had compared Sinha to a dog. This statement had quickly unravelled into a word battle. More so, Shatrughan Sinha suggested that accountability for the party’s crushing defeat needed to be placed on a specific stratum.
Vijayvargiya had accused, “When a car moves, a dog moves under it too, the dog believes that the car is moving because of me. This party is not dependable on one person, it’s a whole organization and there’s a big hierarchy here. Those who are out of it were on a ‘Maun Vrat’ and now they are speaking.”
Adding fuel to the fire, Sinha had personally participated in a congratulatory rendezvous with to-be Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, leader of the Grand Alliance. MP Shatrughan Sinha had always criticized the party’s campaign strategy in Bihar and this was, perhaps, the starting point of the bitter spat.
Tags: Bihar BJP Kailash Vijayvargiya Lok Sabha Nitish Kumar Rajya Sabha Shatrughan Sinha
