Lok Sabha election over, BJP to focus on next year’s Delhi polls
NEW DELHI: Exuding confident of retaining all seven parliamentary constituencies, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari on Tuesday said the party would hit the ground running to ouster the AAP government soon after the results were out, and focus on maintaining the momentum for the 2020 Assembly elections.
“We can’t afford to rest and, therefore, we will start preparing for the 2020 Assembly elections. Congress has already been exposed. By obstructing the implementation of the Ayushman Bharat Yojana and the reservation to the economically weaker forward sections, Arvind Kejriwal has proved that his government has become a great misfortune for the people of Delhi,” said Tiwari.
The actor-turned-politician was the BJP nominee against Congress veteran Sheila Dikshit and AAP’s Dilip Pandey in Northeast Delhi Lok Sabha seat.
Tiwari said that after May 23, when the final vote count will be done, the BJP state leadership would begin planning for the Assembly polls preparations.
“We should not be swayed by the elections results. The Lok Sabha polls result will come out on May 23. As soon as Narendra Modi takes oath as Prime Minister for the second term, the BJP workers will start working with a sole objective to defeat the AAP,” he said.
In 2015, the AAP recorded a landslide victory by winning as many as 67 of the total 70 Assembly seats leaving the BJP with only three and decimating the Congress which drew a blank.
The saffron party plans to run a concentrated outreach programme in slums and unauthorsied colonies, which are said to be core voters of the AAP.
It will put a special emphasis on the Central government-sponsored schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, which has not been implemented by the Delhi government and spread awareness about their benefits among residents of those settlements.
“A door-to-door programme will be launched in all 70 Assemblies. In the next the six months, we will tell the people about the Central government schemes. The party workers will reach out to every citizen, multiple times at regular intervals till the Assembly elections. The senior party functionaries, including me, will participate in an outreach programme. I will continue with my ‘night stay’ in slums,” said the Delhi BJP president.
In January 2017 just before the municipal polls, Tiwari had started the programme under which he stayed with a family in ‘jhuggi’ cluster.