By Nirendra Dev
New Delhi, Oct 28 (UNI) The BJP has certainly lost a key leader in the demise of Madan Lal Khurana.
Though at the ripe age of 82 plus and ailing, Late Khurana had taken a back seat in politics, for the saffron party it goes without saying that the importance of Khurana was such that since his exit as Delhi Chief Minister in 1996, the party has failed to build it up yet again organisationally in past 22 years.
Having led the party to a spectacular win in 1993, technically Khurana had become Delhi’s first Chief Minister.
To put the record straight, the Legislative Assembly of Delhi was first constituted in 1952 but it was abolished on October 1, 1956. The legislative powers were re-established in the 1993, after the Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 came into force,
But in 1996, Khurana was forced out of office as his name figured in the ‘Jain Diary’ related to the Hawala case that saw many political rows and alleged victimisation during the tenure of the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao.

Old timers recall, Khurana’s exit and the appointment of Sahib Singh Verma as chief minister on February 26, 1996 in effect marked the downfall of BJP for reasons more than one. The developments also brought in the end of Punjabi domination of the Delhi BJP.
“It was a significant change and a major shift as after 1998, BJP is yet to taste power in Delhi – once considered our fiefdom. In between these years, Congress under Sheila Dikshit ruled for 15 years and no doubt, we won parliamentary elections sweeping all seven seats in 1999 and in 2014. But the corridors of power in the city government is still eluding the party,” said a BJP MP on the condition of anonymity.
In effect, party insiders say soon after Khurana was sidelined from Delhi politics -- though he won two parliamentary elections from New Delhi -- in 1998 and 1999 -- the internal squabbling in the party reached its crescendo.
Having replaced Khurana as the Chief Minister, Sahib Singh Verma preferred to play his Jat card. Such was the ambition that after his death in a road accident in 2006, his son Parvesh Verma thought now the mantle had passed on to him.
The politics of BJP gradually passed on to the old post-partition rivalries between Punjabi lobby and the Vaishyas or Lalas.
Slowly came in a handful of players – Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Vijay Goel, Vijendra Gupta, Jagdish Mukhi, Harsh Vardhan and Aarti Mehra.
In fact, Sushma Swaraj had sensed the internal fight bitterly in her election campaign when she was projected as the ‘face’ of the party in November 1998 polls. “Ghar ko aag lagi, Ghar ki Chirag se (It is the internal fight that has brought us the defeat),” she lamented and certainly not without good reason.
The BJP’s organisational weaknesses that emerged post-Khurana’s exit in 1996 was not made up even in 2014-15 – 19 years later under the hard taskmasters duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.
In February 2015 assembly polls, the BJP suffered a humiliating defeat winning just three seats in the 70-member assembly.
“Things are not yet over, we still face internal problems. Amitbhai (Amit Shah) is trying hard and but it is a big task ahead to set the house in order for BJP’s Delhi unit,” says a source.
With regard Madan Lal Khurana’s own politics – even he tried new games and at times grew frustrated. In 2005, he developed major differences with the then BJP chief L K Advani and was even expelled.
However, his proximity to Atal Bihari Vajpayee had helped. Though confined indoors due to illness, in September 2005, Vajpayee wrote a letter disapproving Khurana’s expulsion and in a rather passive and helpless development, L K Advani had to revoke the expulsion order.
Khurana had returned to the BJP fold and at later stage, his son Harish Khurana too was accommodated with organisational responsibilities.
However, the internal bickering goes on and a number of leaders from Punjabi, Baniya and Jat communities are not happy with the elevation of Manoj Tiwari —who hails from Bihar—as state unit president.
UNI DEVN RSA 1034