Resentment is brewing in the BJP’s youth wing. The newly-appointed youth wing chief Mr Anurag Thakur has shunted almost all the office bearers of the previous team headed by Mr Amit Thakar, who belongs to Gujarat. This has led to resentment among a majority section of youth leaders who are of the view that the decision to bring an entirely new team was taken only to “get rid of” members who were inducted by Mr Thakur’s predecessor.
Sources disclosed, Mr Thakar’s “not-so-good” relation with Gujarat chief minister Mr Narendra Modi had a lot of bearing in Mr Thakur’s decision in dropping almost all the members of the previous team. Also, the new team was selected by Mr Thakur along with BJP national general secretary Mr Ananth Kumar, who is also considered close to Mr Modi. Of the many new faces in Mr Thakur’s team, one is that of late Pramod Mahajan’s daughter Poonam, who is youth wing’s vice-president. Sources disclosed her name was included under the influence of party’s Maharashtra unit. Party chief Mr Nitin Gadkari is also from Maharashtra.
It could be mentioned here that Mr Thakar’s name was also doing the rounds for the post of national secretary. Infact, a section of senior party leaders were lobbying for him to get a post in Mr Gadkari’s team. But his name was left out, which many in the party felt was at the behest of Gujarat chief minister. Sources in the party said many youth leaders took up this matter with senior party leaders, including Mr Gadkari. “Even Nitin ji announced his new team. Did he chucked out all the old leaders from his team? But most of the members of this team (youth wing) has new faces. Does this mean that all those people who were in Amit ji’s team were not performing well? If this is the reason then party top brass should have questioned them on their nonperformance,” said a senior party functionary.