Bharatiya Janata Party’s senior leader and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, said the party would now concentrate on strengthening the organisation in states where it was not in power.
“We have to strengthen the BJP in those states where the party is not in power,” said Chouhan, who is BJP national vice-president, while addressing a press conference here on Saturday.
He said a fresh membership drive would be launched in Uttar Pradesh from July 6 to August end and it would cover over 1.69 lakh polling booths in the state.
Chouhan said across the country there were 10 lakh polling booths and the membership drive would run across the country covering each booth. He said the BJP had chalked out a three-pronged strategy for the success of the membership drive.
Chouhan said from July 1 to July 5, meetings of the organisational leaders would be held in each district. He said the members would be enrolled through missed call and later physical verification would be done of each call.
The BJP national vice-president said from the organisational point of view, Uttar Pradesh had been divided in 95 districts whereas the actual number of districts in the state was 75. He said the BJP had decided to make four-member core teams for every Assembly constituency where by-elections are to be held and the MPs, ministers and legislators of these constituencies would be given responsibility of ensuring the party’s victory
After reducing Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party to virtual non-players in state as well as in national politics, the BJP in Uttar Pradesh is now planning to strike at the social vote base of these two parties. At a meeting to discuss the party’s membership drive beginning July 6, the cadre was asked to focus on enrolling Jatavs and Yadavs as members.
BJP vice-president JPS Rathore, who is in-charge of the party’s membership drive in UP, said that the BJP would now focus on bringing Jatavs and Yadavs into its fold. The party had lost seats in western UP mainly because Jatavs did not support it even though other Dalit sub-castes did.
Party leaders have been asked to stop the movement of Yadav votes towards Shivpal Singh Yadav’s Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSPL). The BJP feels that Yadavs and Jatavs did not accept the SP-BSP alliance with ‘open heart’ and the BJP can use this disappointment to make inroads in the two vote banks.
The party strategists feel that if the BJP succeeds in making inroads into the Jatav and Yadav vote banks, it will have no problems in winning all 11 Assembly seats in the upcoming by-elections.
“If the alliance had percolated down to the grassroots level, the results of Uttar Pradesh would have been different,” said a party leader.