After losing several of its stronghold seats to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the 2013 Assembly elections, the Delhi BJP is now pulling out all the stops to regain them in the upcoming polls. Had the BJP retained these seats in December 2013 Assembly elections, it could have easily got a comfortable majority.
The adverse results in the last elections had left them short of majority by just four seats in the Delhi Assembly. Realising the importance of these crucial seats, the top leadership of the party has directed its workers to leave no stone unturned to wrest them. Apart from the membership drive which is mostly online, the party cadre has been asked to begin intensive ground work in these constituencies to reach out to people at personal level.
The party central leadership took the loss in six Delhi Assembly constituencies —Hari Nagar, Model Town, Shalimar Bagh, Shakurbasti, Greater Kailash and Tilak Nagar — very seriously. The BJP’s loss in these seats to a rookie party was a major setback for it also because these assembly segments were considered its bastions.
As a part of its electoral strategy, the BJP will form crack teams in the polling booths of these constituencies. They would expose the false promises of the AAP and its 49-day stint in governance. “There are around 250 families at every polling booth. The task assigned to the crack teams is to reach to every family. Thus every member of the team will approach around seven to eight families over the next few months and will constantly remain in touch with them convincing them how important it is to bring a change in Delhi. Senior leaders will be approached by the State unit for karyakarta sammelan (workers meet),” said a senior party leader.
Acknowledging the weak links of the party, Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay said, “losing strongholds like Shalimar Bagh, Shakur Basti and Model Town proved fatal for the party and we fell short of four seats from majority in 2013. This time we are going to make a comeback in these seats. Our party workers have been directed to toil hard to regain these seats so that we attain majority in the ensuing elections,” said Upadhyay. The party on Wednesday held a meeting in this regard where a poll strategy for the seats under Chandni Chowk parliamentary constituency were also weaved.