CHANDIGARH: The RSS has asked the Punjab Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership to focus on 6,000 booths won by the BJP in the 2022 Assembly elections and another 5,900 where the party had lost by a margin of one to 100 votes.
Sources said that joint general secretary, third in command in the RSS, Arun Kumar, held a strategy meeting last evening to discuss organisational and key issues.
All top state leaders, including state BJP chief Kewal Singh Dhillon, state organising secretary Manthri Srinivasulu, former state presidents Vijay Sampla and Sunil Jakhar, former minister Som Prakash, BJP headquarters in-charge Tarun Chugh and BJP Punjab in-charge Satish Poonia, attended the meeting.
He took stock of the ground situation and discussed its strategy for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections, emphasising why winning the border state was crucial for the BJP and the country’s strategic interests.
Sources said that the BJP has established more than 24,000 polling booths across Punjab and that the RSS is working to expand outreach across communities, including Sikhs, Hindus, and various caste groups.
The state leaders were told to ensure booth-level micromanagement.
Sources said that feedback was taken by Kumar in the meeting on the BJP's strengths and weaknesses in each district. The RSS has intensified its deliberations regarding the Assembly elections, and several significant changes at the organisational level are expected in the coming days.
It is learnt that many Punjab BJP leaders urged the RSS to focus on helping the saffron party form the government in the state and emphasised that organisational consolidation would follow. "The RSS throwing its weight behind the BJP in Punjab shows the importance the Sangh attached to the assembly elections in the state,’’ said a party leader.
RSS has also been working with different segments of Punjab to expand BJP’s outreach. The plan is to seek votes from a comprehensive segment of people, majority Sikhs and all other castes and communities, including Hindus.
The heightened focus is on OBCs and SCs in the state, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally leading the engagement with the politically influential deras of Punjab.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader and National Commission for Minorities Chairman Harjit Grewal, who is against the SAD-BJP alliance, says the state governments may come and go, but nationalist ideology must flourish in Punjab. For that matter, he argued that the RSS and the BJP should work among all sections and regions of the state.
The meeting also discussed organisational preparations for the BJP's upcoming rally in Jalandhar and the proposed program of National President Nitin Nabin.
Nabin is set to visit Jalandhar on November 18 to flag off the Samrasta Yatra, which commemorates the 650th birth anniversary of Sant Guru Ravidas.
The yatra, a major political outreach program ahead of the assembly polls, is centred around a prominent Scheduled Caste segment and will start from Jalandhar and culminate in Varanasi on December 5.
The yatra will cover seven states and UTs: Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh) and 46 cities of the country.
The Ravidassia community is a prominent Dalit socio-religious group in Punjab that follows the teachings of the 15th-century Bhakti saint Guru Ravidas.
Dera Sachkhand Ballan, situated in Ballan village near Jalandhar, was recently visited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is the largest and most influential spiritual centre of the community. Ravidassias are a major political swing group in Punjab.
