THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The postponement of the Janaraksha rally planned by BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan from September 13 to 26 to October has put the party in a fix.
The rally, slated to be inaugurated by party’s national president Amit Shah in Kannur, was to highlight the issue of CPM-sponsored violence against the BJP workers.
In the published itinerary Amit Shah had to tour Kannur district for three days even covering the native village of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. But political opponents as well as critics have pointed out raging factional feuds as the cause of the delay. The critics also claimed it was for the second time that the rally was being postponed.
However, top sources in the BJP told ‘Express’ that there had been no official confirmation of the national president on his itinerary.
“The state leadership was going ahead with a schedule prepared by it without consulting the national leadership. Since the rally had to be held with the massive participation of national leaders besides Amit Shah, there had to be proper planning. But that did not happen,” sources said. They also said postponement could get the party state leadership to buy more time to contain the factional rivalry and set the house to galvanise the workers at the grassroot level.
However, party president Kummanam Rajasekharan ruled out the allegations of factional feuds as reason for the postponement of the rally.
“The claim the rally was being postponed the second time was not true. We planned to start the rally from September 13 in view of Onam, Sreekrishna Jayanthi and Gurudeva Jayanthi festivals. But, when contacted the national leadership wanted us to include several national leaders in the rally.
As they are unavailable in September we had no option but to postpone it to October. Moreover, Amit Shah said he would be available only by October 22,” he said. He said in fact the party workers were relaxed as they would get more time and resources to have elaborate preparations to reach out to more people. The rally will be a mega event by parading a large number of national leaders, he said.