Rift amongst party seniors over alliance in Bharatiya Janata Party

New Delhi- The central election committee (CEC) meeting of the BJP on Saturday saw two top leaders, Sushma Swaraj and Murli Manohar Joshi, questioning the top brass over electoral strategy. Ms Swaraj, who sought to know details of B. Sreeramulu’s BSR Congress’ merger with the saffron party, made it clear that she was against the move. Mr Joshi, the sitting MP from Varanasi, demanded to know whether the party’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, was being fielded from there.

However, the senior leader was told that the party is yet to take a decision on the parliamentary constituency that Mr Modi would contest. Mr Sreeramulu has already announced the possible merger of his party, with which the controversial Reddy brothers of Bellary are also associated, and even the BJP’s Karnataka unit is in favour of the merger. The BJP also finalised the list of its 57 candidates for the Odisha Assembly polls. With confusion prevailing over candidates for UP, the party released its second list of 52 names from Karnataka, Odisha, Tripura, Kerala, Assam and West Bengal.

The fight between Mr Modi and Mr Joshi’s supporters over the Varanasi seat is likely to intensify in the coming days. After the CEC meeting, party leader Ananth Kumar clarified that Ms Swaraj and Mr Joshi left the meeting early as both had pre scheduled meetings. Mr Kumar said Mr Joshi had to go to his ‘karyakshetra’ work area. According to sources Mr Joshi, is  miffed with the party leadership for not consulting him if at all the party decides to field Mr Modi from Varanasi.