Political parties are busy drawing plans for door-to-door campaigning for the upcoming urban local body elections in Uttar Pradesh scheduled to be held in November and December.
The polls, besides being the test of the parties seven months after the UP Assembly elections, will also be an opportunity to prove their mettle in the run-up to the 2024 general elections.
As per the data of State Election Commission, there are 438 nagar panchayats, 199 nagar palika parishads and 17 municipal corporations in Uttar Pradesh. The last elections to the urban local bodies were held in October-November 2017 when the Bharatiya Janata Party won 14 out of the 16 mayoral seats while the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged two — Aligarh and Meerut. Later, Shahjahanpur was also given the status of municipal corporation, taking the total number of municipal corporations in the state to 17.
The ruling BJP has set its eyes on capturing all 80 seats in the state in the 2024 elections, party’s state media in-charge Manish Dixit said.
“We are taking the urban body elections very seriously and treating them at par with the general elections. A meeting of the in-charges and co-in-charges of every urban body of the state was held on Saturday to prepare an action plan’’, Dixit said.
As part of the Har Ghar Abhiyan, the BJP will visit every household and seek people’s support, he added.
Dikshit said the BJP registered a comprehensive victory in the recent assembly polls in the state and would repeat its performance in the civic polls.
BJP state president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, state in-charge Radha Mohan Singh and organisation general secretary Dharampal had recently prepared a strategy for the elections in a virtual meeting with the party’s district presidents, district in-charges and conveners of civic elections, he highlighted.
Meanwhile, the focal point of the main opposition party — the Samajwadi Party — will be ground level management, its spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav had appointed in-charges in all municipal areas about two months ago and the organisation was working at the ground level to win these elections, he said.
In-charges have been appointed at the booth level and after the work of delimitation and reservation of municipal areas by the State Election Commission, the selection of SP candidates will also be made by early next month, Chaudhary added.
Although there was a difference between both the elections, the level of preparedness and popularity of the party among the masses would definitely be gauged by the results of these polls, Chaudhary said.
The Bahujan Samaj Party, which was wiped out in the assembly polls winning just one seat in the 403-member UP Assembly, is keen to make a strong comeback through the urban body elections.
As part of the Har Ghar Dastak campaign, the party will take the ideology of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar,, BSP founder Kanshi Ram and other Dalit leaders to the people, a BSP leader said.
“We had launched a membership drive on June 1. Now, we are focussing on connecting the people with the BSP’s ideology and several other campaigns will be launched soon,” he said. The Congress, which is arguably going through its worst phase in Uttar Pradesh, is looking to make a fresh start by planning to spring a surprise in the local body elections, party’s media in-charge Lalan Kumar said.
As the party’s new state president Brijlal Khabri and his associate provincial presidents had taken charge, the preparations for the civic polls had begun in full swing, Kumar said.