Meeting for the first time after the rout in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP national executive today absolved the party leadership of all blame, attributing the results to “an overwhelming polarisation of votes against the Samajwadi Party” while maintaining that “the setback is a one-time aberration and the BJP remains relevant in UP politics”.

Ignoring calls from within for introspection, the BJP did not allow leaders to speak on their own states — in effect, Murli Manohar Joshi and Kalyan Singh were denied the chance to discuss the UP results while state unit chief Kesarinath Tripathi, reporting on the reasons for the party’s failure, shifted blame to “external factors”.

This ensured BJP president Rajnath Singh, being blamed by many in the party for the poll debacle in his home state, did not come under fire at the executive meeting. Warning against media leaks — “what should be shared internally with the leadership is reaching the party through the media” — he called for stitching the “internal weak links”.

Though he claimed to have identified factors for the UP defeat, he did not elaborate. He instead pointed to success in an Assembly by-election in the state two weeks after the results as a “sign of the party’s support base in the rural belt”.

To silence critics in the party, Singh went on: “I can clearly recall that Advaniji used to often say that no party has the capability of defeating the BJP; if we are defeated, it is only because of our own shortcomings.”

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