While BJP President Rajnath Singh yesterday stopped short of taking onus for the party’s worst performance in a decade in Uttar Pradesh, state unit chief Kesri Nath Tripathi, who was among the losers, has suggested that the partymen take collective responsibility.

“Although we were a part of the exercise, the candidates were selected by the central leadership. Neither can we escape from taking responsibility nor can we hold one person responsible for it,” Tripathi, who failed to get re-elected from Allahabad (East), told The Sunday Express on Saturday.

The difference of opinion over selection of candidates had come to the fore during the BJP National Executive in Lucknow in December last year when LK Advani had openly regretted that leaders like Markandeya Chand, who was an accused in the murder case of former BJP MP Laxmi Narayan Mishra and who had been active against the BJP in eastern Uttar Pradesh, had been shortlisted as party candidates. Chand lost to Rajendra Singh of the Samajwadi Party this time.

Over two dozen relatives or close friends of senior party leaders were given tickets despite having little presence in the constituencies. A case in point was Khadag Bahadur Singh, the private secretary of Rajnath. After objections were raised to his candidature, he was outsourced to alliance partner the JD (U). Eventually Khadag Bahadur lost to the SP’s Sarvesh Kumar Singh.

While the party struggled to cope with these problems, the projected chief ministerial candidate of the BJP, Kalyan Singh, chose to spend maximum time in his son Rajvir Singh’s constituency, Debai. Still, Rajvir lost, to the BSP’s Sribhagwan Sharma.

... contd.