Peeved over largescale irregularities in the organisational elections, BJP’s central leadership has suspended the election process till further
advice.
“The organisational election has been suspended and as per the instruction of the central election officer I have communicated the matter to all district election officers,” BJP’s State election officer Basanta Panda told this
paper.
The decision came from national BJP general secretary and election officer Thawar Chand Gehlot on Tuesday. The fresh date will be intimated after the puja festival. However, State general secretary Nayan Mohanty said he had no such information. Repeated attempts to contact State unit chief of the party Jual Oram and general secretary (organisation) Panchanan Rout proved futile.
After TNIE reported the decision of the central leadership to call off the poll process, the Oram group held several meetings at the residence of a senior party leader BB Harichandan. As a counter- strategy, Oram and Rout issued instructions to all the 37 organisational districts to continue the election process.
Sources said the district election officers were pressurised into completing the poll process as early as possible. “Ignoring the instruction of the central election officer, Mandal (block) elections were held on Wednesday in several districts including Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar,” a party leader said. As per the election schedule, October 17 and 18 were the dates for block-level
elections.
As confusion prevailed at district level, the anti-Oram groups have been putting pressure on the central election officer Gehlot to issue an official statement clarifying the party position. The decision to suspend the poll process came following complaints from nearly 20 districts about largescale bungling in membership drive like enrolment of fake members and members from voters’ list, distribution of membership books in a partisan manner, deliberate exclusion of primary members opposed to the present leadership and non-supply of membership forms to a large number of senior
party members for active membership.
National secretary in -charge of Odisha Santosh Gangwar who visited the State recently had also verified the allegations and found them to be true. He is said to have submitted a report to the central election officer which formed the basis for suspension of organisational poll, sources said.