NEW DELHI: Riding high after the electoral success in Bihar, BJP chief J P Nadda is gearing up to face the next phase of polls. In his maiden meeting with the party’s state incharges, held virtually, he directed them to oil the election machineries at the grassroots levels.
Nadda has been holding strategy meetings with party functionaries, setting out tasks, which include increasing party footprints in local bodies in the opposition ruled states. He is learnt to have asked senior ministers to campaign for the District Development Council elections in Jammu and Kashmir, with the poll pitch to stay focused on the benefits of the dilution of Article 370 while ensuring protection of the rights of the locals.
Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday campaigned for the DDC polls in the UT, arguing that the land rights of the local have been protected while social sector benefits have been extended to the weaker sections of society.
West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry assembly elections have gained immediate priority for the BJP president, while the party’s national general secretary Bhupender Yadav has been asked to build ground for the Hyderabad local body polls. “The Bihar verdict has yet again demonstrated the electoral might of a well-prepared cadre, which makes the difference in tough elections,” said a senior BJP functionary.
The recently appointed state in-charges have been asked to quickly familiarise themselves with the new tasks assigned. In West Bengal, the BJP is pushing its youth wing to team up with Lok Sabha MPs to build the party’s campaign by raising local issues so that the national leadership could scale up the poll narrative later on larger issues.
In Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the BJP will be scouting for formidable political functionaries who could add might to the party, with clear assessment within the saffron outfit that not much base could be built in the three poll-bound states in recent years.