By Pradeep Kapoor
LUCKNOW: BJP is now in the election mode for 2019 Lok Sabha polls. As a part of damage control after the humiliating defeat in two by-elections for Lok Sabha seats Gorakhpur and Phulpur, BJP national president Amit Shah visited the state capital and held discussions with the chief minister and senior ministers as well as senior party leaders.
Amit Shah has given clear instructions to make serious changes in the government and the party setup. He has made it clear that UP is very important for the party as it won 71 seats in 2014, with two for ally Apna Dal.
Recently, another allies partner and cabinet minister Om Prakash Rajbhar had threatened to quit the government if he and his community were not given importance in the government and administration. Amit Shahm, who knows pretty well that it would be difficult to face the elections now, held long discussion with Rajbhar and he apparently seemed satisfied.
As a part of a grand strategy to win Amethi and Rae Barely in 2019, the BJP president has succeeded in wooing important leaders from Congress to join BJP. They include Dinesh MLC from Rae Barely leaving and joining BJP with other leaders. Amit Shah addressed a public meeting in Rae Bareilly in the company of Union Minister Smiriti Irani, CM Yogi Adityanath and other important leaders.
As a part of the BJP strategy in the centenary year of Bhartya Janasangh founder president f Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, the Gram Swaraj Yojana has been launched, in which party leaders including Yogi Adityanath are spending nights in the villages and holding chaupal and sharing meal with dalits.
Yogi himself spent two days and night at Jhandai Madhupur village. He was shocked when villagers told him that they had not received the benefit of most of the government schemes. Then CM called DM and other officers to the dais and directed them to tell the villagers about the work done by them.
During his two day stay in the Pratapgrah villages, the CM saw for himself how the area was very backward despite being surrounded by Lucknow and Allahabad. More then 4,000 villages have been identified in UP where the population is very backward and a majority of them being dalits.
Besides CM, other ministers including Rita Bahuguna, Ashutosh Tondon, Srikant Veena and Sidhharth Nath Singh have been asked to monitor the schemes. Similarly party MPs, MLAs and other senior office bearers have also been asked to visit earmarked villages and interact with villagers, share meals with them and spending the night there. (IPA Service)
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