BJP veterans should have raised Bihar poll defeat issue within party: Naidu

After 2014 General Elections, BJP leadership had dropped LK Advani, MM Joshi, Yashwant Sinha from the parliamentary board.

New Delhi: Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Friday opined that the concerns raised by BJP veterans LK Advani, MM Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Shanta Kumar over Bihar election defeat, should have been raised within the party.

Naidu said that the party veterans should have raised the issues in the party forum rather than going public.

The senior BJP leader was quick to add that, ''Advani ji has immensely contributed to the growth and expansion of the party.”

"I don't discuss intra-party matters in media as I have been the president of the party before," Naidu told the media here, adding that "Party is taking note on what is being said by whom. They have not come out against Narendra Modi, they have just made a comment on our strategy about Bihar. The section of media has highlighted it as a headline."

Naidu's statement comes just days after BJP veterans LK Advani, MM Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Shanta Kumar demanded that accountability be fixed for the Bihar poll defeat.

Earlier, Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari had maintained that blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for Bihar election results was unfair.

In an embarrassment to BJP after it suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Grand Alliance in Bihar, the party's veterans demanded that accountability be fixed for the poll debacle.

Exerting pressure on the party top brass including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, stalwarts LK Advani, MM Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Shanta Kumar issued statements over Bihar polls.

"Bihar results show that no lesson has been learnt from the fiasco in Delhi. The principal reason for Bihar defeat is the way the party has been emasculated in the last year. The review should cover the way the party is forced to kow-tow to a handful and how its consensusal character has been destroyed," the party veterans were quoted as saying by PTI.

"The review must not be done by the very persons who have managed and have been responsible for the campaign in Bihar. To say that everyone is responsible for the defeat is to ensure that no one is held responsible," they further added.

After 2014 General Elections, BJP leadership had dropped the veterans from the parliamentary board and formed a new committee Marg Darshak Mandal to reinstate them. This drew flak from the Opposition which went on to say that they have been put in an old age home.