While some senior leaders of the BJP, who lost the Assembly elections with a slender margin, attributed their defeat to internal sabotage and secret understanding of party’s Lok Sabha candidates with the BJD nominees, the State unit of the saffron party blamed it on the massive money power and rampant misuse of official machinery by the regional party for its poor performance.
Even after a thorough analysis of the poll results at two separate forums of the party here on Sunday, the BJP failed to explain what went wrong against its ‘Mission 120’ despite having a robust organisation with nearly 40 lakh members and a strong wave in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
As senior leaders of the party, who are part of the internal churning at the core committee meeting followed by another meeting of state and district office-bearers, provide different reasons for the debacle of the party, there are a few leaders like former MLA Radharani Panda who expressed their anger against the political machination of a powerful few within the party.
Giving three reasons for her defeat from Brajarajnagar Assembly seat, Radharani said she was a victim of internal sabotage.
“I am sure that there was an understanding at some level with the ruling BJD as evident from the split voting which is seen for the first time. I lost despite the fact that our party candidate for Bargarh Lok Sabha seat got maximum lead from my constituency and won the poll. I fail to understand the logic,” she told reporters.