BJP eager to replicate its success in upcoming polls, holds meetings with state units

Buoyed by the party’s record-breaking win in Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party is eager to replicate the success across states that are headed to assembly polls in the coming months, as well as during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. To this end, the party has started holding meetings with state units, urging them to strengthen booths in a manner in which they can utilise the popularity of PM Narendra Modi to help the party sail through.

Central to these meetings, leaders from various states told DH, was the need to strengthen the booths across all the states. Leaders said that the idea is to strengthen the booth in a manner in which the candidate does not matter, and the vote comes to BJP naturally.

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“If we could do it in Gujarat. We can do it anywhere,” a leader said. “If the sangathan is strengthened, then the win is always in sight. In Gujarat, we won with such a majority after denying tickets to 40 of our own people,” the Central leader of the party said.

Sources said that meetings for Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh have already been done, and the party is now holding meetings with the Telangana and West Bengal units by the end of December. Meetings for the Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka as well as Chhattisgarh units are also in the pipeline for early next year. Party president JP Nadda, general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh, and general secretary Sunil Bansal are presiding over most of the meetings.

These series of meetings started after the meeting that PM Modi held in Delhi on December 5 with state office bearers of the party, state in-charges and co-in-charges, in-charges of various mochas, state presidents and general secretaries (organisation) to review the party’s preparedness in the polls in these states. These meetings, leaders said, are in continuation of the party’s “mera booth, sabse majboot” programme.

By the end of December the party is set to hold meetings in Telangana as well as West Bengal. In Telangana, senior state leaders including Sunil Deodhar, OBC Morcha chief K Laxman, as well as state party unit president Bandi Sanjay will be part of the meet. “We have built the party’s core committees now, and we are ensuring that every Assembly constituency has WhatsApp groups,” a key leader from the state told DH, not wishing to be named.

In West Bengal, a meeting is scheduled for December 19, and it is likely that senior leaders from the state, including Suvendhu Adhikari, Dilip Ghose, Locket Chatterjee, Nishith Pramanik, and Subhash Sarkar will attend.

Sources said that next in line are meetings in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In the Karnataka, leaders that are likely to attend include chief minister BS Bommai, former CM BS Yediyurappa, general secretary (organisation) Arun Kumar, besides Shobha Karandlaje.

Earlier this month, the party had already held meetings with state units of Uttar Pradesh as well as Uttarakhand. The first such meeting was held with the state unit of Uttar Pradesh, and those that attended included Nadda, Santhosh, union home minister Amit Shah, union defence minister Rajnath Singh, besides chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

In the Uttarakhand meeting, held on December 12c those attending included the party’s state in-charge Dushyant Gautam former CM Ramesh Pokhriyal, former CM Tirath Singh Rawat, MPs Ajay Tamta and Ajay Bhatt, besides CM Pushkar Singh Dhami.

“The meeting explored ways of spreading the message of BJP’s developmental agenda in the state, and find ways to speak about the party’s schemes especially with beneficiaries. The ways of blunting the party’s unpopularity owing to the murder of a receptionist was also discussed,” a leader from the state said.

The BJP has set an aim of winning 400 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In 2019, they won 303 seats, winning 37.36 per cent votes which is the highest vote share for any political party since 1989.