The internal conflicts within the BJP became evident months before the Assembly elections in Jharkhand as the party MLA from Deoghar, Narayan Das, on Tuesday alleged that he was heckled and abused by supporters of Godda MP Nishikant Dubey in Deoghar on Monday.

The alleged scuffle took place during a review meeting of the Godda Lok Sabha constituency held at a private hotel in Deoghar.

“Everything happened in front of the party’s state general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Aditya Sahu. I have verbally informed him. If my complaints are not addressed, then I might have to approach the party’s senior leadership,” Das told The Telegraph
on Tuesday.

The BJP MLA claimed that nearly 20 supporters of Godda MP Nishikant Dubey hurled abuses at him and even held him by the collars and heckled him during the review meeting of the Godda Lok Sabha seat.

According to the BJP insiders, the supporters of Dubey accused Das of conspiring against the MP during the Lok Sabha polls. They also accused Das of using social media to tarnish the image of Dubey and demanded the party’s state leadership to cancel Das’s ticket in the forthcoming Assembly polls scheduled in November-December
this year.

The Dubey supporters got enraged when they saw Das had come to attend the review meeting with his supporters as Deoghar is an Assembly segment under the Godda
Lok Sabha seat.

“I challenge them to show a single social media report in which I have conspired against the MP. We worked hard and the MP even got a lead from Deoghar. Even then they are accusing me of conspiring against the MP,” said Das.

He alleged that Nishikant Dubey’s supporters were also blaming Sarath BJP MLA Randhir Singh and former Mahagama MLA Ashok Bhagat for working against Nishikant Dubey.

Nishikant Dubey when contacted over the phone refused to comment on the incident stating, “I am not well and am in the hospital.”

However, BJP state spokesperson Pratul Sahdeo claimed it was the “handiwork of some outside elements to tarnish party image”.

Jama MLA and the BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Dumka seat, Sita Soren, had also alleged to the media that she was defeated because of a breach of trust by the BJP’s local leaders and named former Dumka Lok Sabha MP Sunil Soren, former MLA and cabinet minister Louis
Marandi and Sarath MLA Randhir Singh.

Sita Soren, who is the elder daughter-in-law of the JMM patriarch Shibu Soren and is a three-time MLA from Jama on the JMM ticket, had joined the BJP in March ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and was given a Lok Sabha ticket for Dumka axing Sunil Soren whose name had been announced in the first list of the party’s candidate for Jharkhand.

The BJP, which had won 11 Lok Sabha seats while its ally the AJSU had won one in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, could manage to win only eight seats while AJSU won one in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls out of a total of 14 Lok Sabha seats.

The JMM and the Congress candidates representing the INDIA bloc won all five ST-reserved Lok Sabha seats and wrested the Dumka and Lohardaga seats from the BJP.