Loyalists versus new imports debate heats up in state BJP unit

MUMBAI: Cracks in the Maharashtra unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) surfaced on Saturday, with a senior leader criticising the party’s “mega recruitment drive” of getting leaders from other parties into thefoldbeforetheLokSabhaand Assembly elections.

State BJP president Chandrakant Patil, in a video clip fromameetingofBJPworkersat Pimpri Chinchwad on Friday, is heard saying that the “party culture of standing by loyalists was diluted due to the influx of leaders from other parties”. “There is a need to inculcate confidence among workers that the party values loyalty and merit,” Patil says in the video, which has since gone viral.

Senior party leader and former finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, too, saidonSaturday that “loyalists should not be humiliated” and the “party should not become private property of any anybody”. He, however, said BJP did benefit from the influx of leaders from other parties before the election.

Patil, however, retracted his statementonSaturdayinahastily-called press conference, where he said that his remarks were distorted by the media and that “the party benefited from the performance of leaders inducted from other parties”.

“The statement was twisted by the media… We are, in fact, proud of their induction and we have benefitted from them in the elections. I said that the leaders that have come from other parties are an integral part of the party and none of them have left the party. The decision of bringing leaders from other parties was a collective decision taken unanimously by the party’s core committee,” he clarified.

NAVIMUMBAI: ActorShabanaAzmi metwithanaccidentontheMumbai-Pune Expressway on Saturday when the car she was in crashed into a truck near the Khalapur toll booth. Both vehicleswereheadingtowardsPune. Azmi and her driver, Kamlesh Kamath, sustained injuries. Azmi, who suffered injuries on the face, was travelling in a Tata Safariwhileherhusband,lyricist Javed Akhtar, was in travelling inanAudi,saidpolice.Thepolice saidtheyareintheprocessofregistering a case of rash and negligent driving against Kamath.