BJP to take harsh decision to revive the party in UP

Lucknow, May 16(UNI) Hinting harsh measures in the face of the party's crushing defeat in recently concluded Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, the BJP today replaced leader of its legislature party while admitting failure of organisation at all levels in the state.

''Some serious introspection with regards to revamping of the organisation right upto booth level is required to put the party back on rails before the next General Elections due in 2009,'' senior party leaders M Venkaiah Naidu and Gopinath Munde told reporters here after day-long review meeting of the party office bearers and legislature party.

The legislature party today unanimously elected Mr Om Prakash Singh as its leader replacing Mr Lalji Tandon.

Mr Singh, former UP BJP President and a backward leader from Mirzapur, is seven time legislator who elected to the Vidhan Sabha from Chunar assembly constituency. Mr Tandon was the party leader in the 14th assembly, and even became the Leader of the Opposition during the tenure of the Mulayam Singh Yadav government.

Listing reasons behind the ''shameful'' performance of BJP in the polls, the senior leaders said the organisational failure,the lack of proper preparations before going to polls and the party's inability to present BJP as the alternative to Samajwadi Party in the state were responsible for the defeat.

Mr Naidu and Mr Munde said the party leaders and workers were asked not be disheartened due to poll reverses as the bigger goals were ahead in the form of next Lok Sabha elecions.

Reviewing the poll results, they said Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party, which played the Brahamin card in the UP polls with aplomb, resorted to a new social combination which would not last long. ''The Congress in the past has also used this ploy but for a short duration,'' they claimed, while urging their partymen that they still had the time to regroup their support base.

In reply to queries about the loss of the party being attributed to its proximity to Mulayam Singh Yadav-led SP, the senior BJP leaders it a ''wrong perception,'' which the opposition raked up to their advantage.

State BJP President Keshari Nath Tripathi and Kalyan Singh in their brief addressess, appealed to newly-elected members to go to the assembly with a positive frame of mind and play the role of a strong opposition.

BJP, in its worst-ever performance in the assembly polls in the recent times, had managed just 50 seats coming down from 88 which it had got in 2002 assembly elections.

UNI