BJP re-draws Uttar Pradesh electoral strategy after Amit Shah's meeting

After initially targetting Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who has been relentlessly attacking the BJP over the latter's alleged failures and taking to the streets on different issues, the BJP appears to have changed its strategy in Uttar Pradesh and has now decided to target the Samajwadi Party (SP) to what the political analysts say keep the electoral contest a two-cornered affair instead of multi-cornered.

The change in the strategy has come after the brainstorming session of the saffron party at Varanasi a few days back which was chaired by union home minister and ex-BJP president Amit Shah.

According to a BJP leader, who had attended the session, the saffron party was of the opinion that the SP might fare better in the forthcoming assembly polls in the state and that its tally could well cross the one hundred mark.

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''While the SP may well get over one hundred seats, the BSP is not likely to improve its 2017 performance...Congress is nowhere in the contest though it may be in the fight in pockets,'' the leader told DH here on Monday.

The SP had won 47 seats in the 2017 assembly polls while BSP managed to win 19 seats. Congress could win only seven seats.

The leader said that a better showing by the Congress could adversely impact the BJP performance as the grand old party could be cutting into the former's upper caste vote bank.

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''Any increase in the Congress' vote share will primarily hurt us...a two-way fight between BJP and SP will be better for the BJP,'' remarked a Lucknow based political analyst.

The indication of a change of strategy became evident when the BJP leaders started targetting SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav almost immediately after the Varanasi session. In the public meetings also the party leaders, including Shah and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath trained their guns mainly on Akhilesh by raking up his 'Jinnah' comment.

Sources in the BJP said that there was a feeling in the party that it might not repeat its 2017 performance when it had won 325 of the total 403 seats in the assembly. The party feels that it may lose seats in the western region following the farmers' agitation.

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Interestingly the SP leaders also feel that a direct contest with the BJP will be to their benefit. ''In a direct fight with the BJP, the Muslims and other anti-BJP votes may not be divided as the voters will know that there is no use supporting any other opposition party,'' a senior SP leader said.

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