NEW DELHI: LED by party chief Amit Shah and RSS pointsman Krishna Gopal, the BJP brass went into a huddle on Saturday night to take stock of emerging electoral challenges posed by the possibility of a united Opposition in the general elections.
The BJP is also bracing up for election campaigns in the poll-bound states once its ‘Sampark se Samarthan’ programme concludes on June 11. The BJP leaders reached the residence of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for the meeting. As the BJP had won in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh when Rajnath was the party president, the meeting was held at his residence for which reports from state units were discussed, party sources said.
“The BJP top brass and Gopal discussed a host of issues, with focus on campaign strategies for the pollbound states. The meeting came in the backdrop of the recent Karnataka election. Besides, the party leadership sought to assess the challenges ahead of the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan,” a party source said. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, BJP organisational secretary Ram Lal and party vice-president V Satish also took part in the deliberations. “The BJP leaders discussed the issue of a bouquet of welfare schemes, which could help the party beat anti-incumbency in the poll-bound states.
The party leadership with the help of reports of the social welfare ministry strategised to maximise the reach of the welfare schemes in these states,” a source said. Shah, the sources said, briefed the BJP leaders about the outcomes of his deliberations with Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders on issues concerning the NDA allies. “The Bihar issue was also discussed in the face of the NDA allies sounding out their positions about the seat adjustment, and particularly the position of the JD(U). The leadership is keen to ensure that the NDA allies be accommodated since the BJP will have to brace up for a united Opposition in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” the source said.