Hindustan Times (Amritsar)

GROUPISM COMES TO FORE

- Vishal Sally letterschd@hindustant­imes.com

BATALA: As the elections of Gurdaspur parliament­ary seat are around the corner, groupism in the local unit of BJP came to fore during the first phase yatra started by state BJP president Vijay Sampla. As soon as the yatra reached outside Batala constituen­cy, BJP workers were seen divided into groups. Notably the Batala BJP is divided into two groups. One group is led by former improvemen­t trust chairman and state executive member Suresh Bhatia while the other is led by district BJP president Rakesh Bhatia.In a show of strength, both groups had set up separate stages for the yatra at the industrial town.

Though the party had set up three official stages at the By-pass, Gandhi Chowk and at Khatib village, but the yatra was forced to stop outside Delux foundry, where local leader, Ajay Rishi, a close companion of district BJP president, Rakesh Bhatia welcomed Sampla.

Later Sampla was stopped outside Canara Bank, where Suresh Bhatia along with veteran BJP workers and RSS leaders welcomed him but Sampla did not come out of the bus to grace the proceeding­s. Bhatia’s opponents claimed that Sampla deliberate­ly choose to remain in the yatra to snub Bhatia. He, however, denied that Sampla took a jibe at him. “Sampla is my leader and his absence from the welcome function should not be taken in negative terms,” he said.

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