With just 12 days left for campaigning and brewing dissent over ticket distribution, the BJP has now pulled up its socks to ensure a comfortable victory in the February 7 Assembly polls. The party has decided to rope in 14 Union Ministers to oversee the final leg of poll preparations, besides deploying one Member of Parliament (MP) for each of the 70 Assembly constituencies.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address four rallies between January 29 and February 4. The party manifesto, however, will
be released just after the Republic Day.
The Delhi BJP’s Election Committee, in a whirlwind meeting on Friday, took a slew of measures to catapult campaigning strategy of the party. Union Ministers from the party have been called in to oversee work in the 14 districts. The names include Union Health Minister JP Nadda, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, MoS for Ministry of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman and MoS for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, among others.
Sources said, ensure sound coordination between party workers and leaders is their priority. “Each Union Minister has been assigned one district each and they will have to supervise preparations and mobilise workers of the area assigned to them. Apart from their districts, they are to look into the overall electioneering of the party. They will be present in all the meetings henceforth,” said a member of the Delhi BJP Election Committee. Apart from this, there will be 70 additional MPs who will look after work by party workers in every Assembly segment.
While the Congress released a part of its manifesto on Friday, the BJP will release its manifesto on either January 27 or January 28. “Our manifesto is ready. We will launch it any time after January 26,” said BJP chief Satish Upadhyay.
The manifesto would talk of a 50 per cent cut in power tariff not through any subsidy but rather by introducing lED bulbs, slashing prices of costly patented medicines, introducing more smart corridors having lED lights, WiFi and CCTV cameras, and so on.
The top leadership of the state unit on Friday met PM Modi to seek his timing for addressing rallies in the Capital. “There will be four rallies of Modi spread over four days. They will happen between January 29 and February 4,” said a senior BJP leader.
Besides, the party has aimed to open as many as 72 election offices across the Capital. “Around 80 per cent of the election offices have been opened already. By January 28, all 72 offices will be opened by party workers,” said another senior leader.
Around 40 star campaigners, including PM Modi, BJP national president Amit Shah, Bollywood stars Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha, Paresh Rawal and so on.