In its first major reshuffle following a humiliating defeat in the just concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the BJP legislature party on Wednesday replaced Lalji Tandon with veteran backward leader Om Prakash Singh as its leader. Suggested by senior leader Venkaiah Naidu, Tandon himself proposed the name of Singh. A former state president of the BJP, Singh is considered close to party chief Rajnath Singh.

Majority of the newly elected MLAs in their first meeting were of the opinion that the change of guard was necessary to convince the people that the party was sorry for the previous leadership’s decisions of alliances with the BSP and the SP.

Besides Naidu, BJP general secretary Gopinath Munde and secretary Ram Lal were also present at the meeting.

The legislature party reached the conclusion that the previous team in the Assembly completely failed to play the role of a vibrant opposition because of the soft attitude of its senior state leaders.

Even party Vice-President Kalyan Singh supported the same and said, “Our legislature party worked as a B-team of the Samjawadi Party in the House. Despite having so many issue of importance, we never tried to raise a mass movement to make people feel our presence.”

Suggesting introspection, he said, “We shouldn’t be discouraged by the defeat. But we need to remind ourselves that voters distrusted our occasional opposition of Mulayam Singh Yadav for the reasons we all need to find out. We not only failed to play the role of an opposition party in the House, but also couldn’t show a united face before the voters. The state leadership should explain all this.”

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