Vijay Goel reception irks city BJP chief

New Delhi: A felicitation function for the newly elected BJP councillors in three civic bodies of the national capital by union minister Vijay Goel has not gone well with Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari. Seeking to reach out to party’s newly elected councillors, Mr Goel has invited them to his residence on Tuesday evening but party insider said that Mr Tiwari camp has advised councillors not to attend the function.

A party insider told this newspaper that since the declaration of municipal polls results, in which the BJP won 181 seats of total 272, no felicitation or interaction programme of all the councillors was organised by the party. “After Mr Goel announced felicitation programme yesterday, state leadership hurriedly called a meeting on Monday evening and distributed and greeted them with sweets. State leadership tried to score some points by calling meeting of newly elected party councillors ahead of Mr Goel’s function,” he added.

According to well placed sources in the party, the state leadership left no stone unturned to make Mr Goel’s function a grand failure. “One of the state general secretary personally called the newly elected councillors last night and today morning saying that they should not attend the function organised by the union minister as it was directed by Mr Tiwari,” they said.

One of the newly elected councillors said that he received a call from state general secretary directing not to attend function at Mr Goel’s residence going against Mr Tiwari’s wishes. Over 50 BJP councillors, defying the state leadership directive, attended the function at Ashoka Road Mr Goel’s residence.

BJP national vice president Shyam Jaju, Lok Sabha members from city, Ramesh Bidhuri and Parvesh Verma have attended the function. Two MLAs Jagdish Pradhan and M.S. Sirsa also joined the party. Mr Tiwari, whose name also sent with the invitation, did not attend the function.

Mr Goel also extended grand reception and offered delicacies from old Delhi to the newly-elected party councillors who turned up at his residence.

A senior party functionary said that tug of war between senior leaders has not gone well with the councillors, who are complaining that without any reason they were dragged in their fight of supremacy.

While interacting with councillors, Mr Goel urged them to “adopt a slum” to mark three years of Narendra Modi government. Mr Goel said that the idea is to initiate developmental work in these slums and help the slum-dwellers in resolving various issues.