It’s now almost certain that Delhi Municipal Corporation elections are going to be held in December. Along with the civic polls, it is also certain that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest the elections under the leadership of Adesh Gupta, Delhi BJP chief.
About one and a half months ago, a campaign was launched by a group of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for a leadership change. Some leaders of the Delhi BJP were also involved in the campaign. In a special meeting held last week some decisions were taken on the leadership issue.
Meanwhile, the Delhi BJP has intensified its preparations for the corporation elections. An election management committee was announced by the party on Tuesday. Along with this, 21 more committees have been formed to oversee party campaigns.
In the special meeting of state office bearers, mainly national vice-president and state in-charge Baijayant Jai Panda, Organisation General Secretary Siddharthan, Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, former state presidents Vijender Gupta and Satish Upadhyay, J&K co-in-charge Ashish Sood, Assam co-in-charge Pawan Sharma, National Spokesperson RP Singh, Shahzad Poonawalla and many other officials of the state were present.
Former state general secretary Ashish Sood has been made co-in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir as convener of the election management committee. Virendra Sachdeva, Dr. Anita Arya, Vishakha Shailani and Atif Rashid have been made members of the committee. Harsh Malhotra has been made convener of call center, Mahendra Gupta has been made coordinator of election office, Moolchand Chawla convener of reception room, Harish Khurana convener of media department, Neeraj Gupta and Aarti Mehra has been made convener of judicial affairs and election commission and convener of literature production committee.
The Delhi BJP has appointed Vishnu Mittal convener of publicity material purchase, Sundar Chaudhary convener of publicity material and literature distribution committee, Ashok Goel Devraha convener of video van committee, Satish Upadhyay, convener of manifesto committee, Shehzad Poonawalla, convener of social media and hi-tech campaign committee, State General Secretary Dinesh Pratap Singh has been made the convenor of the Home Contact Campaign Committee, Pankaj Kumar Jain, the convener of the Guest Migration and Arrangement Committee, Dr. Mahendra Nagpal, the convener of the point committee, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri the convener of the chargesheet committee.
Kuljit Singh Chahal has been named Samaj Sammelan Committee convener, Satish Upadhyay Bhasha Provincial Conference Committee convener, Rajiv Babbar Creative Committee convener, Vijender Gupta Advertisement and Publicity Committee convener, former Union minister Vijay Goel has been made chairman of Screening Committee.
Sources say the special meeting was held last week in the absence of state president Adesh Gupta in which some special decisions related to the MCD elections were taken. State-in-charge Baijayant Jai Panda, state co-in-charge Alka Gurjar, state organisation general secretary Siddharthan, former state president Vijender Gupta, former state general secretary Ashish Sood, state vice-president Rajiv Babbar and Sunil Yadav, etc. were called on the orders of the Central leadership.
Notably, none of the three Centre ministers of the state was invited to the said meeting.