Narendra Modi may have shifted his base from Gandhinagar to Delhi following the thumping victory of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the last lok Sabha elections, but the saffron party is still cashing in on the Prime Minister’s popularity to win impending by-elections of nine Assembly and Vadodara lok Sabha seats in the State scheduled for next Saturday.
Apart from nine Assembly constituencies vacated by sitting BJP MlAs (who have now become MPs), former Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi also vacated the Vadodara lok Sabha seat for Varanasi. For these poll-bound seats, the saffron party’s election campaign is hovering around Modi’s popularity in order to scalp all the seats.
Modi is omnipresent right from election campaign material — hoardings, cut-outs etc — all have his pictures to speeches of local leaders. Despite being deputy mayor of Vadodara, very few people know BJP candidate Ranjan Bhatt, who is contesting from the Modi’s previous lok Sabha constituency, trying her best to establish connection by telling them that she would fulfill all promises made by Modi (during the campaign of last lok Sabha election).
Strategically, the saffron party is running the campaign on Modi’s agenda of ‘good governance’, which was also one of the main issues during the last lok Sabha election. The party has downplayed Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and kept her visibility limited.