In the high-stake Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll, due next year, the BJP would commence its poll campaign in February listing 100 achievements of the Modi Government. The campaign will begin from next month as the party is set to complete the process of electing district presidents and that of the new State chief in January.
Speeding up the process of re-structuring, the party has finalised 50 district presidents, an announcement regarding which will be made by January 10. Thereafter, a new State chief would be elected.
According to well-placed sources, for the post of State chief, the names doing the rounds include Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Ram Shankar Katheria and State leaders Swatantra Sev and Dharm Pal. They, however, clarified that there could be “other names” and a consensus has yet not arrived on any single name “in the circulation.”
In the run up to the 2017 Assembly polls, the party is trying to build a strong base in the rural areas as it has already registered its presence in 1,13,000 booths (as against 54,000 booths earlier) of the total 4,00,000 booths in the State. The party, which had earlier 16 lakh members in the State, has increased its membership to two crore now, the sources maintained.
The State, where BJP won 71 lok Sabha seats in the 2014 general elections, is set for a pitched four-cornered electoral battle for the 404-strong Assembly with the ruling SP, its predecessor BSP and the Congress bracing up for the tough contest.
Claiming a “reasonably good” performance in the recent block-level polls, where the BJP “for the first time” declared names of its candidates for 2,800 seats out of the 3,000 seats, the party leaders said, “The BJP won 536 seats and lost another 367 seats by a small margin of 200 to 300 votes. In another 500 seats, the BJP stood in the second place.” This, they asserted, pointed to “the consolidation of party’s electoral base at the grass-roots”.
Asked if unlike Bihar and Delhi what would be the campaign mode of the BJP, sources said the party would work out “100 achievements of the Modi Government” and take them to the people.