Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh unit chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary said here on Sunday that his party aimed to win all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2024 and had chalked out a special strategy for the 14 seats it could not win in 2019, including Rae Bareli and Mainpuri.
He also dismissed accusations made by the opposition that the BJP had a tacit understanding with the Bahujan Samajwadi Party.
''In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, we won 64 seats and lost 16 seats. In the bypolls, we won Rampur and Azamgarh seats. As of now, there are 14 seats which we do not have. Rae Bareli and Mainpuri are among them,” he pointed out.
''The party's central leadership has made a special strategy for the seats the party lost previously. Union ministers are visiting and staying there. I am confident that we will retain the 64 seats which we won (in 2019), again emerge victorious from Azamgarh and Rampur, and clinch the remaining 14 seats which we lost last time,'' Chaudhary said.
''We will be contesting with the aim and register a win in the next general elections,'' the newly appointed party's state chief said.
Asked whether the BJP would extend outside support to Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) chief Shivpal Singh Yadav in case he decides to contest Lok Sabha elections from Mainpuri on his own, Chaudhary said, ''Politics is a game of possibilities. As of now I cannot say anything on this issue, nor is he (Yadav) in touch with us.”
''Shivpal Yadav has differences with the Samajwadi Party. I am saying it again and again that Akhileshji should handle his party, allies, family, uncle, elder uncle in Rampur (Mohammad Azam Khan),'' he added.
On Akhilesh Yadav's allegation that the Election Commission of India removed the names of SP's core voters among Yadavs and Muslims from electoral rolls to help the BJP, Chaudhary said the charge was ''inspired by falsehood'' and advised the SP chief to accept defeat as the BJP did after losing polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
On the charge of a tacit understanding between BJP and BSP, he said, ''There is nothing like that''. He added, ''Mayawati and Akhilesh contested polls together, so they would have a better experience of internal alliance than us.''
''Even his father (Mulayam Singh Yadav) has the experience as he had contested with the BSP in 1993,'' he said.
Asked if the BJP would give tickets to Muslims in the upcoming urban local bodies elections, Chaudhary said, ''Yes, we will give tickets to those who are a part of our winning formula.''
He dismissed any challenge from rivals and said their aim always remained to do better than what had been achieved in the past.
Chaudhary took a jibe at the ongoing events in the Congress over its president’s election, saying self-contradiction in that party and its leadership was behind the inability to take a decision.
Taking a jibe at Rahul Gandhi, the UP BJP chief said he should undertake a Congress Jodo Yatra instead of Bharat Jodo Yatra. He described the Congress as ''parivarwadi'' (dynast) and called party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra a ''barsati medhak'' (seasonal frog), who comes to the state only during elections.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is Congress general secretary and party in-charge of UP.
Chaudhary noted that a number of people were dreaming of becoming the prime minister and said, “Yeh khichri pak nahi payegi.”