The hectic discussions at the BJP’s two-day meeting of national and state office bearers saw the BJP’s top leadership share the roadmap for improving the party’s performance on those 160 Lok Sabha seats where its performance was found lacking in 2019. With the party aiming to take its tally beyond the last time’s 303, special focus is being given to booth management and intensive campaigning in the southern states like Telangana and Karnataka, besides West Bengal.
In specially curated sessions, party office-bearers were told to motivate workers on the ground to publicise “Modi ki Guarantee”, the welfare and development work done by the Narendra Modi government in the last nine years. They need to expand the public outreach on consecration of the Ram Mandir, which is scheduled for 22 January next year. Sources said the BJP top leadership put special emphasis on office-bearers working in mission mode and carrying forward the party’s preparations for the Lok Sabha elections while keeping in mind youth, poor, women and farmers—the four top priority social segments.
The office bearers were also asked to give inputs so that the implementation of welfare schemes of the government could be taken to the saturation point during the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra. The Supreme Court’s endorsement to the abrogation of Article 370 and the Modi government’s fulfilment of its election promise on Jammu and Kashmir is also likely to get a special mention during the Lok Sabha campaign, said a person privy to the minutes of the two-day closed-door meeting.
Apart from booth management and campaigning strategies for victory in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP leaders also talked about crisis management and the possible planks that the rivals may use in next year’s mega contest. Given that unemployment, price rise, charges of crony capitalism, Rafale jet deal, communal hatred and recovery of black money from fugitives have been some of the issues that the Opposition has repeatedly used against the Modi government, the BJP is expecting Parliament security breach by “jobless” youth and caste census to figure prominently in the Opposition arsenal.
During the two-day event, special sessions were organised for party workers on how to work at the booth level to increase 10% votes in the Lok Sabha elections and how to express positive views on social media and to share more data related to the Central government’s welfare schemes for the poor including free ration, free shelter, subsidised LPG, free toilets, tap water supply, free medical insurance, farm loans and skill development.
The top leadership also shared examples of booth management in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The message was to approach people after full preparations and make optimum use of organisational strength to improve booth management, said a source.
Party presidents of states where Assembly elections were held recently also gave presentations on the BJP’s performance. Like in the case of the recent elections in heartland states, the BJP plans to pay special attention to the 160 seats on which its performance has not been good in the past few Lok Sabha elections.
A senior party leader aware of the developments said that there was a strong possibility of the BJP announcing names in bulk of these seats much before the announcement of election dates.
“It may even be done next month,” said a party office bearer. C.R. Patil, G. Kishan Reddy, Arun Singh, Tarun Chugh, B.D. Sharma, Dinesh Sharma, Vasundhara Raje and Tejasvi Surya are among the leaders who attended the meeting on the concluding day.