SHILLONG, APR 3: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has blamed it on the “anti-Christian tag” for its poor performance in the recently concluded Assembly elections in the state.
Its state president Ernest Mawrie also expressed that he is ready to step down if the party decides that his tenure is over.
The party has fielded candidates in all 59 seats but it could retain only the two constituencies – South Shillong and Pynthorumkhrah – which it won in 2018.
The issue was discussed in the state general meeting of the party in the presence of national general secretary Rituraj Sinha and Meghalaya in-charge Dr M Chuba Ao.
Addressing media persons after the meeting, Mawrie said the anti-Christian tag is one of the three reasons why the party did not win in the last Assembly elections.
“Everybody in the august house are raising the point why only close to the elections about 4-5 months before the elections this anti-Christian tag came out in the newpapers or in the whatsapp group that the BJP has done this and has done that and why not throughout the year,” he said.
When asked, Mawrie said, “Our central leaders right from Amit Shah, we have a meeting with religious leaders. Even our national president when he released the manifesto he invited all the religious leaders to have lunch with him. From time to time our national leaders, union ministers, we went and met Bishops and pastors to remove the tag of anti-Christian.
When we met them they are okay they are happy and even from the national office from Delhi we have issued a press statement that we are not against any religion because we believe in secularism and India is a democracy country but still I don’t know here in the NE states still people they put that tag that BJP is anti-Christian which is not true at all.”
On the other hand, the state president the second reason was due to the inability of the party to reach out to organize the party at the grassroot level due to the Covid pandemic.
“I took over as president in 2020. I got only one month’s time (to work) then came the lockdown. So this is the main factor where the organization was not upto the mark, not upto the grassroot level,” he said.
“Thirdly, though the BJP government has provided so many central schemes to the people of our state in terms of free gas connection, free rice, PM Kisan, JJM and other schemes but this advantage has been taken away by some other parties, which I don’t want to mention the name,” he added.
Stating that the BJP had organized 59 public meetings during the elections, Mawrie said, “PM himself was very happy with the performance and attendance of the public in the meeting. There was a huge turnout of the crowd but we could not convert those crowds into votes as people in Meghalaya did not give us the mandate.”
Whether there is any move to remove him as state president, Mawrie however said, “That I will leave it on the decision of the party. If the party feels that your tenure is over then we will project another president, there is no harm as I cannot sit for long (as state president).”
“As per constitution, the term is for three years but it depends on the decision of the central leaders. I don’t have any problem (to step down),” he added.
Mawrie’s term has already expired in February, this year.
By Our Reporter
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