BJP planning ‘social engineering’ to win 2017 UP election: Om Mathur

Speaking to The Indian Express, BJP national vice president and in-charge of the party’s UP unit, Om Mathur, said that beginning from units at the zonal level and up to the booth level, social equations have to be kept in mind.

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BJP leader Om Mathur

Come 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and BJP will make a bid to defeat Mayawati and Mulayam at their own game — social engineering. Buoyed by the impressive results in 2014 Lok Sabha elections where it won 71 out of 80 seats, the BJP has been working overtime to carry forward the success to the Assembly elections.

However, since Assembly elections are a whole new ball game, the BJP is planning accordingly. Speaking to The Indian Express, BJP national vice president and in-charge of the party’s UP unit, Om Mathur, said that beginning from units at the zonal level and up to the booth level, social equations have to be kept in mind. “Our priority is to strengthen the party at the local level. It is indeed a challenge for the BJP and our aim is to take forward the success of the Lok Sabha elections,” Mathur said.

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Hence, besides social engineering, BJP is keeping its workers active through a number of initiatives like mahasampark abhiyan, under which the party has contacted its “members” and convinced over 80,000 among them to become “party workers”, Mathur said. Moreover, the membership campaign has been taken up in earnest — while there was a time when BJP didn’t have more than 35 lakh members in UP, the figure is now 1.80 crore.

Mathur said that till now, BJP would struggle to bag the third or fourth position in the state but prioritising booth level units will change this. “Of the 1.4 lakh polling booths in the state, BJP aims to have units in at least 1.2 lakh booths. So far, we have units in 1.3 lakh booths,” he added. Mathur has twice held direct interactions with booth level in-charges. He said the party’s decision to contest the ongoing panchayat polls will further strengthen BJP in rural areas. The plan for panchayat elections was chalked out three months ago. “We are hopeful of a positive result,” he said. Mathur will be in Lucknow on Saturday to review preparations for the polls.

Considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, Mathur also slammed the Akhilesh Yadav-led government in UP. “The collapsed law and order situation in UP has led to an incident like Dadri… The situation has been compounded with the presence of six chief ministers in the state, among whom Azam Khan is the super CM,” he added.

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