NEW DELHI: While the Delhi BJP leadership is busy fighting chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP through press statements, senior party leader and union minister Vijay Goel has already started reaching out to the electorate and is regularly holding meetings with party workers in the wake of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
A senior Delhi BJP leader told this newspaper that when the state leadership is still not able to draw its strategy, Mr Goel has already reached the masses with lists of failure of Kejriwal government. On January 27, Mr Goel launched the “dhol aandolan” at his official residence to highlight the failures of Kejriwal government where Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari was also present.
A large section of the party workers, which question the state leadership’s planning or road map, has started looking up to Mr Goel, former Delhi BJP president under whose tenure the party won 32 seats out of 70 assembly seats in 2013.
Although Mr Tiwari led a massive protest of 200 odd workers at the Jantar Mantar on February 14 to observe “black day” on completion of four years of Kejriwal government, party workers are sitting idle in the absence of any planned work in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls. Instead of hitting the ground, the state leadership is busy calling meeting every now and then. Majority of party workers are busy attending those meetings as a result of which actual work on the ground is affected,” said a senior Delhi BJP office bearer.
While the Delhi BJP has failed to organise regular programmes to reach out to the electorate, Mr Goel has, in his individual capacity, organised over a dozen programmes through his “dhol aandolan”. On Wednesday, Union minister Giriraj Singh flagged off a video van from Sarojini Nagar Market, under “dhol aandolan”, showcasing the achievements of public welfare schemes launched by the Narendra Modi government and the failures of Kejriwal government. The video van will roam throughout Delhi with the slogan “Kejriwal bhagao Delhi bachao” with a team of party workers who, in the absence of Mr Goel, will interact with the people across the city. “About 15 programmes across the city have been held so far under the banner of “dhol aandolan” and it has now become stronger with the launch of the video van,” said a party insider.
