AGENCIES, New Delhi: Bhojpuri film actor-turned-politician and the current leader of the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Manoj Tiwari has offered to quit over the party’s drubbing in the Delhi election on Tuesday. However, the top brass of the party are not going to remove him right now given the forthcoming elections in other states.
Sources close to BJP say the party will eventually replace him, but only after the organizational elections, (these were postponed because of the Delhi election) which are expected to be held in one or two months. In all, the saffron party could only manage eight of Delhi’s 70 seats in the Assembly election, which was swept by Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Tiwari has completed his three-year term anyway, say party leaders and behind the scenes, the saffron party is believed to be disappointed with Tiwari’s performance as he largely failed to reel in the Uttaranchali voters, which was a key reason for his appointment as Delhi unit chief.
The party has noted that Mr Tiwari’s appeal came a cropper in constituencies with a large number of Purvanchalis, like Burari, where AAP won by more than 50,000 votes. The appointment of Tiwari from northeast Delhi constituency was seen as an attempt to woo Purvanchali voters in Delhi ahead of 2017 municipal elections.
