By Pradeep Kapoor
LUCKNOW: Scared by possible opposition alliance of Samajwadi Party, BSP and Congress and other smaller and regional parties, BJP leadership is adopting multi-dimensional strategy to retain 73 seats won by party in alliance with Apna Dal in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 Lok Sabha elections..
BJP leaders including party President Amit Shah admitted that if Samajwadi Party joined hands with BSP then it would be very tough going for saffron brigade in UP. That is why in every meeting in UP, BJP president Amit Shah is urging the party workers to increase the vote share of the BJP.BJP won seats in 2014 Lok Sabha poll due to the division in the opposition ranks as also the impact of the Modi charisma during the polls. That phase is gone and now the BJP has to face the peoples wrath due to the failures of both the state government and the centre.
Recently UP CM Yogi Adityanath and senior ministers met top brass of RSS in Lucknow and Delhi. RSS leadership has shared it’s feedback about the government and bureaucracy and people’s perception with UP CM and other senior ministers. RSS leadership has advised large scale reshuffle in the ministry and drop those ministers who have liability and facing corruption charges.
UP CM has also been advised to effect major overhauling in the bureaucracy all over the state. The general complaint against bureaucracy is that they do not listen to party workers for their genuine work. BJP is also trying to keep allies in good humour. Recently UP CM attended the function to celebrate birth anniversary of Apna Dal President and union Minister Anupriya Patel at Lucknow.
In order to counter SP-BSP alliance of OBC and dalits, powerful dalit leader and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan was also invited for the meeting. BJP is now working to make use of the services of Ram Vilas Paswan to win over Dalits in UP through a series of meetings of LJP with Apna Dal and BJP.
BJP is also so working the strategy to hold at least one big public meeting every month in the state and mobilize people from neighbouring districts to make crowd in the meeting of PM Narendra Modi. BJP national President Amit Shah has asked social media supporters at Varanasi on Wednesday to form what’s app groups for publicity of achievements of Modi and Yogi governments.
BJP is trying to reach out to important persons as well as common men on street sand publicise about good work of central and state governments. CM Yogi identified five important personalities from different groups in state capital and visited their residences and sought their cooperation.
For BJP leadership, UP forms the core of the central election strategy of the Party and the entire focus is on retaining the strength of its Lok Sabha members from UP which is at present is an impossible task. The worry for the state BJP is that both the SP leader Akhilesh Yadav and the BSP supremo Mayawati are determined to join hands against the BJP and no intimidation by the centre has been able to persuade Mayawati to change her policy. In the event of SP-BSP alliance becoming a reality in UP before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the number of winning seats of BJP will drastically fall in Uttar Pradesh and that will make a big difference to the BJP in its seat estimates. (IPA Service)
