Cross-voting dominates BJP executive committee meet:june 20

The two-day meeting of the executive committee of the state BJP,which concluded here today failed to revive the shattered confidence of party workers as the cross-voting episode overshadowed all other issues.
Though the party passed a few resolutions, a majority of the leaders present at the meeting said it was a lacklustre excercise.
“During the meeting, the party workers did not show any interest in participating in any discussion as their confidence in the leadership has been shattered after the cross-voting episode,” a senior BJP leader told The Tribune.
He said when a resolution was moved to condemn the UPA government on the corruption issue, a few party workers stood up and tried to draw the attention of the leaders to allegations that the BJP legislators had taken a huge amount for voting for National Conference (NC) and Congress candidates in the Legislative Council elections.
A few workers even blamed those who had been given a clean chit by the high command in the cross-voting controversy and said the “clean” MLAs had also lost the faith of the people.
Keeping in view the anger among the party workers, national leaders skipped the meeting.
“Usually, the general secretary in charge of the party affairs attends the state executive committee meeting to decide the future course of action, but this time, not a single senior leader turned up,” said an activist. He said neither the state unit nor the high command was in a position to revive the BJP as the local leaders had lost the confidence of the people of the region.
Instead of deputing the general secretary,the party high command sent the organising secretary,Ram Lal, who attended the meeting for an hour.
He assured the workers that action would be taken against those who voted for the NC and the Congress candidates.In his address, he repeatedly mentioned the cross-voting episode but failed to convince the workers, sources said.“Some workers tried to raise questions, but he left the meeting,saying that he has to go back”, the sources added.