Delhi Polls: Kiran Bedi’s campaign manager Narendra Tandon quits citing her dictatorial ways of functioning

NEW DELHI: Chaos and drama prevailed at the BJP headquarters on Monday as CM candidate Kiran Bedi’s campaign manager Narendra Tandon resigned from the party, citing her dictatorial ways of functioning. Tandon abruptly withdrew it a few hours later.

A senior functionary, Tandon who was managing Bedi’s campaign, wrote a letter to party chief Amit Shah expressing his dismay over the fact that Bedi “who had lathicharged many BJP workers earlier was the party’s leader” and that putting up with her constant instructions and insults by her personal team was impossible. By later afternoon, however, Tandon withdrew his resignation and cited his “emotional” state of mind as the reason behind his earlier decision. Speaking to ET, he said, “It was a mistake to resign. Dharmendra Pradhan took me to BJP main office. I met Amit Shah and Arun Jaitley and they convinced me. I am fortunate to work in a party with leaders like this.”

BJP leaders privately said: “Tandon was in charge of organising routes during her roadshows and rallies. She would want changes to them all the time. She wanted to avoid peak timings, congested roads and would want to reach jansabhas on time while Tandon, like any political assistant, would plan her route through populated streets so that she met more people,” said a party functionary close to Tandon. Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay added to the confusion by saying the resignation had been accepted. Upadhyay later said he was not aware of the withdrawal. Tandon, ex-secretary of BJP city unit, was part of the campaign panel headed by Anil Jain and was given additional responsibility of managing Bedi’s campaign. In the morning, BJP made it a point though to criticise Tandon’s record. His quitting would not affect its poll preparations as he was a low-level functionary, Delhi BJP spokesperson PS Kapoor said in the morning.

The confusion is said to have delayed the release of BJP’s vision document. Minister Nitin Gadkari said: “I am here to tell you what all I can do to improve Delhi’s infrastructure. You will get to know about the rest of plans shortly.”

“Now we are getting a vision document ready that will present how Delhi will look in 25 years. There is much difference of opinion even on creating this paper,” a national leader said. Vision 2050 to make Delhi a world class city will be released on Tuesday, leaders said.