New Delhi: The BJP’s list for the Haryana Assembly elections has seen some delays with the party deciding that some of the names cleared by its election authority might need a rethink. Some of the leaders who joined the party recently, too, need to be accommodated and the party is also cautious about who is given a ticket by the rival Congress party.
After the CEC meet last week, the party’s leadership including president J P Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan and co-incharge Biplab Deb held a long meeting to this end on Monday evening after the membership campaign was launched.
Sources in the BJP said that disgruntlement among some of the leaders as well as incumbency after a decade-long term in power have proved to be challenges for the party. “The list has been delayed because of some important deliberations in the party; some leaders need to be accommodated. We also need to be mindful of who gets the tickets from the Congress party,” a leader involved with the party’s preparations in the state said.
Among the tickets where the BJP is keeping a keen watch on is whether the Congress will field Olympian Vinesh Phogat, in which case the BJP will field her cousin Babita against her. Congress sources, however, said that the probability of Vinesh being fielded is low, since the feedback from the ground and from leaders of the community indicated no gain for Congress.
The BJP, too, is relying on feedback. The party’s state president Mohan Lal Badoli told reporters on Monday that the party is reaching out to workers at various levels to gather feedback. “There was a long list of candidates, and so we decided to survey everyone. Feedback from booth level is being collected. After that, the central leadership will take a decision,” Badoli said. He, however, indicated that he might not contest the elections this time.
The BJP’s internal surveys have not pointed at positive results, and so the party is working on fielding better candidates, reaching out to various caste groups and has drawn up plans to send in some of the party’s bigwigs to campaign, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In the last CEC meeting, held on August 29, the party had discussed 55 names, said senior party sources. However, a few of these names might be dropped for various reasons.
The BJP, which came to power in the state for two consecutive terms, has seen a huge dip in popularity, prompting the party leadership to change leaderships in the state ahead of the Lok Sabha elections – in March, then Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was replaced with OBC face Nayab Singh Saini.
Despite the change, the party battled disgruntlement among voters over the wrestlers’ and the farmers’ protests. The party managed to retain only 5 of the state’s 10 Lok Sabha seats, a significant dip from the 10 seats it swept in 2019. Elections to the 90-member assembly will be held from October 5.
Published 03 September 2024, 16:05 IST