The crisis in BJP deepened today with Yashwant Sinha quitting all party posts, including vice president, and hit out at the leadership demanding resignation of all office-bearers of party and Parliamentary Party owning collective responsibility for the electoral defeat.
Sinha, former external affairs Minister, raised the banner of revolt just before BJP chief Rajnath Singh addressed a press conference imposing a gag order on leaders from airing their views in public failing which he threatened disciplinary action.
The MP from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand sent a four-page letter to Rajnath Singh and other members of the party's core group in which he said it was difficult to avoid impression that in BJP "we put a premium on failure".
He said he was also resigning from being in-charge of Karnataka affairs and as head of the Foreign Affairs Cell of the party in response to senior leader Jaswant Singh's suggestion at a core committee meeting that there should be collective responsibility for failure.
"Our reluctance to introspect and introspect comprehensively and openly is unacceptable to a large number of people within the party. So is the rat race for posts. If we are a party with a difference, let us set an example in abnegation," Sinha said in the letter.