Senior leader will talk to Anil Joshi on farmers’ protest: Pb BJP

Chandigarh: After former cabinet minister and ex-MLA from Amritsar (North) Anil Joshi questioned his own party’s state and central leadership on the issue of farmers, the core committee of Punjab BJP on Monday decided that a senior party leader would speak to him to address his concerns.

During the core committee meeting chaired by state BJP president Ashwani Sharma at the state party office in Chandigarh, resentment among BJP leaders in the state, who feel it would be difficult for them to face people in the 2022 assembly elections, was raised.

Most of the core committee members were of the view that the need of the hour was to find a solution to the ongoing farmers’ agitation at the earliest.

“There is nothing new which the state leadership has not discussed with the central leaders in Delhi on the farmers’ agitation. Otherwise, we are continuously updating them and we also want an early solution on this issue,” said state general secretary Subhash Sharma. He added that the core committee mainly focused on the strategy for the forthcoming elections, issues which need to be raised in the run-up to the polls and the failure of the state government.

Former cabinet minister Madan Mohan Mittal said while every party leader was entitled to express an opinion, he should have done so on the party platform instead of going to the media. Mittal agreed that many other leaders had expressed their resentment against state and Central BJP leaders for failing to find a solution to the farmers’ agitation.

Emphasising that farmers’ issues needed to be addressed much before assembly elections next year, Mittal said if this was not done, party leaders could switch over to other parties.

On talks of a possible alliance between Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for the assembly elections, Mittal said SAD had weakened after breaking its alliance with BJP and needed support to contest the elections. However, BJP would contest all 117 assembly segments on its own, he asserted.

Those who attended the meeting included Union minister of state Som Parkash, Tarun Chugh, Madan Mohan Mittal, Rajinder Bhandari, Tikshan Sood, Manoranjan Kalia, Shwait Malik, Subhash Sharma, Jeevan Gupta, Dinesh Kumar, Iqbal Singh Lalpura and Rajesh Bagha.


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