Leaders constituting the party's core group met at the residence of senior BJP leader L K Advani in which several issues including the method of decision making, lack of co-ordination among the leaders and a link between performance and rewards were raised.
Senior leader Jaswant Singh is believed to have questioned the rationale behind "rewarding" those entrusted with drafting and overseeing the election strategy after it had failed.
He reportedly asked why those in charge of the strategy were being given positions, an apparent hint at Arun Jaitley, who has been made the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
Jaitley was the chief strategist during the Lok Sabha election and Sudheendra Kulkarni, an aide of Advani, was a member of the campaign committee.
Of late, the two have also come under attack for airing their views on the electoral defeat in articles they wrote in the media.
Differences also reportedly cropped up at a meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party on Tuesday in which another senior leader Arun Shourie sought to criticise party president Rajnath Singh.
Shourie is believed to have asked Singh why he was being secretive about the review of the electoral performance for which Singh has constituted a three-member committee but would not reveal the identity of those in the committee.
He was joined by Maneka Gandhi, who wanted to know who should be approached for airing their views on performance. It was impossible to do that frank exercise if the identity of those on the committee was not disclosed.
Rajnath Singh is believed to have said he had refrained from naming the committee members as there could be pressures brought on them. Advani reportedly favoured the members' position on the issue. The issue is understood to have figured in the core group meeting on Wednesday.
Shourie is understood to have questioned Rajnath Singh's idea of a performance review at the state level since the campaign, as well as the finances, were managed from the high command. So if there has to be a review it has to be at the central level, a view Advani agreed with.
Briefing media persons after the core committee meeting, senior leader M Venkaiah Naidu said that there was no ban on anyone writing articles in the media but internal matters should not be discussed in public by "insiders." "It is also advisable and wise on the part of anybody who is interested in the party's future welfare that they should utilise the party forum, highlight the problems and their points of view," he said.
Naidu said it was not advisable for any individual, however big or small he may be, to air the views in public. He denied reports that Jaswant Singh had written a letter to Rajnath Singh on the state of affairs in the party.
He also refuted that Jaswant Singh was angry in the meeting. "He is a senior leader of the party, who expressed his viewpoints like everyone else," he said.
Asked whether the electoral defeat was discussed at the meeting, Rajnath Singh said that the core committee discussed all organisational issues and the future course of action. In the parliamentary party meeting held on Tuesday, Shourie incidentally referred to the articles written by Jaitley and Kulkarni and told Rajnath Singh that since it was in public domain what was the need for keeping the review in secrecy.
Rajnath Singh also reportedly voiced his concern over the issue in the meeting. There was a general consensus among BJP MPs present in the meeting that the right forum to discuss such issues was within the party.
Jaitley had written an article in The Indian Express where he had said that "shrillness" in the party campaign was one of the reasons for the party's loss. This was apparently a reference to Varun Gandhi's hate speech and the raising of the Ram temple issue by some leaders.
Kulkarni, in an article in a periodical, had held the Sangh parivar responsible for the party's poor performance in the elections by undermining Advani in the public eye. He had also held "disarray" in the BJP top leadership and Advani's failure to assert himself at crucial point in the campaign as other reasons for the defeat.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh said the party has to reflect on its future course and the succession of the leadership should "evolve."
"It must not arrive at a succession because of an event...the event is loss in election," he added. "We have to reflect on what we are trying to address... and it is again where you come back to the situation where the party has to be a party that is current. That addresses today, therefore, tomorrow and does not continue living in yesterday," he told NDTV.
On the issue of factionalism in the party, he said the problem afflicts all political parties and not BJP alone. Singh also agreed that "extreme elements" dented the image of the party before the electorate.
"The BJP will have to address the aspect," he added. On Hindutva, he said there is a "lack of clarity" about what the word means today.
"I do't know whether the word is confusion but there is a need for ideological distillation," he added.
