Shotgun blows hot over PM’s rally cancellations

Though some local dictatorial leaders are solely responsible for creating the mess and an undesirable situation in Bihar… A situation that led PM to cancel his Bihar rallies at the last minute... sending a negative message

PATNA: Senior BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha posted a series of tweets on Saturday, questioning the logic behind cancellation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rallies in Bihar.

“Hope, wish and pray that despite some teething troubles and electoral problems, we do as well as we expected in the Bihar elections,” Sinha tweeted.

This was followed by two more tweets in quick succession: “Though some local dictatorial leaders in Bihar are solely responsible for creating the mess and an undesirable situation SHATRUGHAN SINHA, senior BJP leader in Bihar….”

“A situation that led our star campaigner PM to cancel his Bihar rallies at the last minute... sending a negative message???”

Modi was to address rallies at Buxar, Paliganj and Vaishali on October 16 but the events were cancelled.

Sources in the BJP said the party leadership was taken aback by the ‘untimely’ tweets, which came on the back of three more ‘embarrassing’ tweets Sinha had posted on Friday. In one of his tweets, he had warned of the damage potential of sky-rocketing lentil prices.

The BJP MP has been miffed for quite some time at being ‘ignored’ by the BJP leadership.

Coming as they did in the midst of a seemingly-close election, Sinha’s tweets clearly riled the party.

“The claim that PM Modi was slated to address a series of rallies which were cancelled, is a canard,” BJP state vice-president Sanjay Mayukh said.

“The question of cancellation of PM’s rallies does not arise as no rally of the PM was scheduled in the first place (on the dates suggested). The tweets represent his personal views and do not articulate the BJP’s position,” he said.

Sinha could not be reached for his comment. His friend and former BJP MLA Binod Yadav contended that Sinha has expressed his concern about countrymen at large and the people of Bihar in particular.

Another close friend said though Sinha had been included in the list of BJP’s star campaigners, he was denied the opportunity to campaign even in constituencies where the candidate requested his presence. “A case in point is Surajgarha, where sitting BJP MLA Prem Ranjan Patel wanted him to campaign but the party did not approve,” he said.