NEW DELHI: With Election Commission slated to unveil dates for Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand within a few days, the BJP top brass has hit the ground in a bid to ensure that the state polls mirror the 2019 Lok Sabha verdict. “Senior BJP leaders are camping in poll-bound states along with designated in-charges for elections.
EC is likely to announce dates for the polls within a few days. The BJP is comfortably placed in Haryana, while efforts are underway to rope in smaller parties in Jharkhand and Maharashtra to get the social engineering right,” said a senior BJP functionary. The BJP vice president and election in-charge Om Mathur has been camping in Jharkhand for a week, sources said, to bring forth government measures to appeal to the electorate before the model code of conduct comes in to force.
The BJP organisational secretary B L Santosh is overseeing party infrastructure’s preparedness in Haryana. The BJP national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav has held organisational meetings in a number of districts in Maharashtra. Three poll-bound states would also seemingly be a test for the party leadership to demonstrate that the mammoth 2019 mandate resonates in Assembly polls as well in the face of the likelihood of the local issues gaining prominence in the electoral narrative.
While the BJP would be seeking to contest close to 175 Assembly seats in Maharashtra, the party strategists are working to stitch alliances with a few smaller parties, besides the Shiv Sena. “In the remaining 113 seats in the state, the BJP would like to earmark about a dozen constituencies for smaller parties. The BJP having won 122 Assembly seats, while Shiv Sena bagging about half of it,” sources said the elbow room for negotiation for Uddhav Thackeray is squeezed to demand more than 100 constituencies in the seat adjustment talks.