NEW DELHI: The BJP has formed a 27-member election manifesto committee for the Lok Sabha elections with defence minister Rajnath Singh as its president. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union minister Piyush Goyal are the committee’s convener and co-convener respectively.
The committee includes 11 Union ministers, besides chief ministers of some BJP-ruled states, except UP and Rajasthan. The committee is tasked with preparing an inclusive and people-centric manifesto well ahead of the first phase of polling on April 19 across 102 LS constituencies.
The committee members include Bhupendra Patel (Gujarat CM), Vishnudeo Rai (Chhattisgarh CM), Mohan Yadav (MP CM), Himanta Biswa Sharma (Assam CM) Assam, Keshaw Prasad Maurya (UP’s deputy CM) besides experienced leaders like Shivraj Singh Chouhan (former MP CM) and Vasundhara Raje (ex-CM Rajashthan).
Rajnath Singh is ranked among the top five party leaders and has had a profound organisational experience ever since he was the party president. He also headed the party election manifesto in 2019 along with other members, who have been repeated in this panel. According to party sources, Union ministers Dharamendra Pradhan, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Arjun Munda, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Smriti Irani and Rajeev Chandrasekhar are among 24 members of the committee. “They have good experience of reading people’s pulse and have ideas for shaping up an effective poll manifesto in the form of Sankalp Patra Modi Ki Guarantee.’ “This party document will incorporate people’s suggestions received in a drive and the Namo app,” said a senior BJP leader.
About the absence of some CMs from the committee, sources said senior leaders who are not included could be made a part of other organisational exercises related to the elections.
Bihar’s former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi is well-versed in organisational works as well as finance-related issues, former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, former minister Jual Oram, party’s organisational leaders such as Vinod Tawde, Tariq Mansoor and Anil Antony are other prominent members of the manifesto committee. To ensure representation from minority communities, the BJP is learnt to have included Anil Antony and Tariq Mansoor. The party has also made former Haryana BJP chief OP Dhankar one of the members of the manifesto committee.
The party will take a serious look at people’s suggestions for the manifesto. It launched a 15-day drive across the country inviting suggestions. The party received more than 15 lakh suggestions for the manifesto. Another 78,000 suggestions were received through NamoApp.
New resolves to make India ‘atmanirbhar’
The party placed suggestion boxes at 6,000 places across the country in addition to holding rounds of meetings with experts and prominent people. Sources said the BJP’s election manifesto may have many new resolves for making the country ‘atmanirbhar’ (self-reliant) and ‘viksit-Bharat’( developed India) by 2047 through people’s participation.