New Delhi: The statement of BJP veterans attacking the party leadership on Tuesday night over the Bihar poll debacle led rival parties to say their "suffocation" in the party is out in the open and that it was an "eyeopener" for its top brass.
Head of AICC Communications department Randeep Surjewala said suffocation of BJP's 'Margdarshak Mandal' reaffirms what the entire country knew all along and that it is out in the open.
He said the nation is caught up in a personality cult where one individual has become bigger than 125 crore people.
"...There is policy paralysis, decision paralysis and delegation paralysis in the country. We hope that sane advice of ?Margdarshak Mandal? will be heard to reform the 'Chaal, Chehra and Charitra' by PM Modi, Shri Amit Shah and the coterie," he said.
JD-U General Secretary K C Tyagi said the statement is an eye-opener for BJP's present leadership.
"They (the 'Margdarshak Mandal') members are founder members of BJP. We had with them for so long. When there is no democracy in the party, how can there be democracy, how will there be democracy in the country. We extend full support to the Margdarshak Mandal, which has now been reduced to Mookdarshkar Mandal."
Congress senior spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the BJP can abuse them, but hoped they will not abuse its own Mardarshak Mandal unless they have now become a thorn in their flesh.
"You can abuse us all day and night, but please pay attention to those who you call the Margdarshak Mandal and the leader of whom you call yesterday the person from whom you learnt the most," he said.
Taking a swipe at the rumblings in BJP, former union minister P Chidambaram said the country was seeing "the first fireworks" on the eve of Diwali.
"On the eve of Diwali, we are witnessing the first fireworks. No surprises there," he tweeted.
Another Congress leader Manish Tewari said it is no secret that Advani and company has been waiting for an opportunity to air their resentment.
CPI leader D Raja said this shows that there is a big trouble within the BJP on the debacle of Bihar election and went to the extent of saying that BJP is resorting to destruction and self-destruction in the name of attributing their own reasons for the debacle in Bihar.
Union Minister Babul Suprio, however, said, the dressing room talk should not have come out in the open.
Not speaking as a Minister but as a 'BJP fan', he said "everyone should sit together and present a united face".
JD(U) leader Pavan Verma said it is very obvious that after the defeat of this magnitude, the BJP needs to do an introspection and it must be an "honest" one.
"I think what the veterans have said is that if those who are responsible for this defeat are assessing why it happened, it is unlikely to be honest. But this is an internal problem of the BJP. All I want to say is that there is concentration of power in the hands of Narendra Modi and the highly over-rated strategising of Amit Shah which has reduced the party of BJP," he said.
Raja said writers, historians, scholars, scientists, everybody has been agitating and they should have understood.
He said RSS has come to the centre-stage of politics and it is the RSS which has been dictating everything to the government.
"It is the RSS which has been pushing its Hindutva agenda. The moralities, illiberal socio-political agenda they are trying to push through and BJP leadership is nothing but the political arm of RSS.
"Now they have been defeated and they must understand why people are rejecting RSS and why people are rejecting BJP's divisive, sectarian politics," he said.
He said the BJP's present leadership had put these leaders in their Margdarshak Mandal, now they are giving margdarshan. "Let us see what BJP is going to do."
Singhvi advised Modi to consider rescheduling his foreign trips, and citing Modi criticising the opposition on foreign soil, said for 70 years, the Indian tradition has been that the moment you leave Indian boundaries, politics stops.
"Fight amongst ourselves. But when we stand there, we taper over the differences," he said, adding that questions are now being asked over Modi criticising opposition on foreign land.
"This is entirely on the Prime Minister who has invited all this. Because here is a Prime Minister, who addresses foreign audiences as if he is addressing a political rally," he said.
