NEW DELHI: A day after polling for the second phase of Gujarat Assembly elections concluded, the BJP chief Amit Shah is learnt to have asked his key aides to fan out in Karnataka with an aim to wrest power from the ruling Congress.
With the state headed for Assembly polls next year, the BJP has put in place a team of key leaders to build the campaign for the saffron outfit, with initial focus on social media.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi will shortly be in the state to give a push to the party’s poll preparations, close aides of the BJP chief have brainstormed to build the campaign on local issues by cornering the incumbent Congress government.
“On the very next day of the conclusion of polling in Gujarat, the party chief had asked us to begin preparations for Karnataka. We have begun orientation of state leaders from booth level and upward to block, district and state capital levels to optimise the use of social media to connect with people. This has been our model in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections as well as in Gujarat,” said a senior BJP functionary.
The BJP leaders, sources said, have decided to play the Hindutva card more aggressively in Karnataka. “There is a fertile ground in the state for the BJP to employ the Hindutva card. The party will also prop on radicalisation of youths from the minority community. We note that people in the state are concerned about reports of radicalisation of minority youths, which needs to be politically debated,” he said.
Besides Karnataka, seven other states, namely Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh are heading for polls in 2018, which would set up the political scene for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.