Election management and manifesto committee: Madhya Pradesh team BJP's attempt to bring peace among netas

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

BJP has announced the election management and manifesto committee team for the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. A look at the names suggests that the party has reached out to dissidents and tried to accommodate leaders to make everyone happy before the elections. Union home minister Amit Shah, during his two Bhopal trips in July, had asked the state leaders to approach veterans who were unhappy and take everyone along.

Veteran BJP leader Jayant Malaiya has been named head of the BJP's manifesto committee. Malaiya had lost the assembly election from Damoh in 2018 to Congress leader Rahul Lodhi. In 2020, Lodhi joined BJP along with Scindia.

In 2021, Lodhi contested the Damoh bypoll on a BJP ticket and lost. He had blamed Malaiya for the loss and the party had issued a show cause notice to Malaiya. Since then, Malaiya has not been active in the party.

However, in December last year, the BJP celebrated Malaiya's 75th birthday as Amrit Mahotsav in Damoh. MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayavargiya and other party leaders had attended the celebration. From the stage, Vijayavargiya offered an apology to Malaiya for the show cause notice.

A former state finance minister, Malaiya has been given importance as head of the manifesto committee. Veteran BJP leader Prabhat Jha has been made the co-chairman of the manifesto committee. Jha retired from his RS membership in 2020 and this would be the first official assignment given to him since then.

Patan BJP MLA Ajay Vishnoi has on several occasions raised questions on his own state government in the Centre. Vishnoi has been named in both the election management as well as manifesto committee. A month back, MP BJP backward morcha