Party veterans expected to make the first cut
The BJP is expected to come out in January with its first list of candidate for the lok Sabha polls. This may include names of 100-odd lS seats, mostly senior party leaders and several time parliamentarians, who are sure to contest the forthcoming election from their traditional seats.
“We are in the last round of the completing the formalities. Names of senior leaders would be there in the first list,” a senior BJP leader said. Veteran lK Advani, leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj, party president Rajnath Singh, former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, general secretary Ananth Kumar and senior leaders like Gopinath Munde, Shahnawaz Hussain, Rajiv Pratap Rudy are among others who are expected to make it to the first list of candidates.
Advani had recently said in a newspaper interview that he would contest the next elections. He represents Gandhinagar in the current lok Sabha. While Swaraj is certain to contest from Vidisha, Gadkari is likely to test electoral waters from Nagpur. Ananth Kumar, Hussain and Rudy could be BJP candidates from Bangalore South, Bhagalpur and Saran.
BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had recently addressed party’s election campaign committee asking them to focus of those 106 seats that the BJP lost to the Congress with a margin of less than 1 lakh votes. The difference between the BJP and the Congress on these seats was just over 84 lakhs, Modi had said at the meeting.
The BJP got a little over 4 crore votes less than the Congress’ in the 2009 elections and the party hopes that the Modi wave would help them bridge that gap substantially.
“Given that we contest less number of seats than the Congress, if we get votes almost similar to the Congress, the difference between our seats would be substantial,” a BJP leader said.
Those involved in BJP’s election management claim, with current trends the party could register its best ever performance and get over 200 seats.
The party is also planning to entrust each of its senior leaders with the responsibility to manage around a dozen lok Sabha seats in the neighbourhood of their constituency.
“Call it a decentralised election management strategy. We have seen that presence of a heavyweight has impact on the neighbouring seats. Entire idea is to get as many seats as we can. We have to focus on those seats which we missed by a whisker last time,” another BJP leader said.