Chandra is also believed to have submitted a report to party president Amit Shah on how the Gandhi supporters plastered the city of Allahabad during the two-day national executive with posters, banners, hoardings and buntings demanding Gandhi be named the party’s chief ministerial face for the crucial assembly polls scheduled early next year.
The situation came to a boil when Gandhi came face-to-face with senior party leader Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at a city hotel with former’s supporters vociferously demanding declaration of Gandhi name. To the bystanders the sloganeering in support of Gandhi almost amounted to heckling of Jaitley, who is reported to be not favourably disposed towards Gandhi being made party’s CM face in the state.
The party leadership had planned to launch the campaign for the crucial elections in the state from Allahabad, however, the infighting over who would be the party’s face put paid to the plan. With the BJP leadership sounding out Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for a “crucial role” in the campaign, murmurs of discontent were heard. Singh’s longtime rival Union Minister Kalraj Mishra indirectly opposed the move to project the Home Minister as the party’s face suggesting that the party could go to the polls with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah as mascots and the chief minister decided later.
Soon after Mishra aired his opinion, former Lok Sabha member and former cricketer Chetan Chauhan sounded the bugle for Singh, albeit again not directly, claiming that Team UP needed a captain to lead it during the polls. It could not be a mere coincidence that Chauhan too is a Thakur like the Home Minister.
The conflict got sharper after Lok Sabha MP and cinestar Shatrughan Sinha went on record to claim that Varun Gandhi was a better choice than Rajnath Singh for the CM face.
With such differences prevailing, it’s unlikely that the party would announce the CM face, if at all, before the next executive which is scheduled for September end.