Amid plummeting mercury levels in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the political temperatures are soaring high ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in April-May 2024.
The political parties in the region have already started organizing mass contact programs and preparing their poll strategies to take on their rivals in the poll arena to woo the electorate.
On one hand, the Bharatiya Janta Party is expected to design its poll campaign on the development plank and banking heavily on the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and on the other hand, Kashmir-based regional political parties are aiming to get together to give a tough fight to the BJP to at least retain maximum seats.
Taking the lead, the top brass of the Bharatiya Janta Party has already set in motion the consultative process to first identify the core issues and then work on the poll strategy to woo the electorate spread across all five Lok Sabha seats in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Out of these five Lok Sabha seats, BJP had won both the seats from the Jammu division and three others were won by the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference from the Kashmir valley.
After completing the marathon exercise of Delimitation in the region the BJP is aiming to win at least three Lok Sabha seats this time. The BJP has also convened a high-level meeting in Jammu on January 18 where national general secretaries of the party are expected to fine-tune the poll strategy of the party after taking feedback from local leadership.
The meeting is scheduled to take place here at the party headquarters where the senior leaders are expected to brainstorm on the party's poll agenda. The focus of the BJP leadership is mostly likely on areas where the BJP had failed to make inroads during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
With certain areas of Poonch and Rajouri districts of Jammu region clubbed in Anantnag Lok Sabha seat of south Kashmir, the BJP is hopeful of making an impact and is making all efforts to boost its support base in the Valley.