BHOPAL: Though the next assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh are still more than two and a half years away, the ruling BJP seems to have already started planning for it, particularly focusing on the 60 odd seats which it lost during the previous elections.
Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav, state BJP chief Hemant Khandelwal, party’s national joint general secretary (organisation) Shiv Prakash and state in charge Mahendra Singh held one-to-one meetings with 25-30 members of the state council of ministers in Bhopal on Sunday and Monday.
The party leadership particularly zeroed in on the state of individual ministers’ connectivity with the districts they have been assigned.
According to state BJP sources, the party leadership was keen to know the situation in the Assembly constituencies won by the Congress in 2023 elections. While the BJP had won an unprecedented 163 seats, the Congress had finished a distant second with just 66 seats in the 2023 assembly polls.
"The party is keen to know what the political situation is in those constituencies, including people's feedback about the Congress legislators as well as local BJP functionaries. They also inquired about the future prospects of our party on those seats," a senior state BJP leader told TNIE.
Briefing the media on the meetings, state BJP chief Hemant Khandelwal said, "The party’s organisational leaders particularly enquired about the connectivity of each minister with the districts assigned to them, particularly their coordination with the party’s organisation and workers in those regions."
"The CM enquired about the ministers' visit to schools, hospitals and anganwadi centres of the districts of their jurisdiction. We also checked out with them the performance of government schemes on ground zero, like the wheat procurement from farmers in individual districts,” Khandelwal said.
Meanwhile, the local body polls which will be held in July 2027, would serve as the first major acid test for the government and the ruling party in the state to test the waters ahead of the 2028 Assembly elections.
Based on the state leadership's one-to-one meetings with the ministers, a detailed report will be sent to the national leaders.