In its first step towards preparations for the 2017 Assembly polls, the state BJP has set about to categorise all 403 seats based on party’s performance in the previous elections and its chances of winning as per existing political and demographic scenarios of the constituencies. According to one of its leaders, the party will place the Assembly seats under categories A, B, C and D and submit the report for review by BJP state in-charge Om Mathur who will be in Lucknow on March 18. For this purpose, the party will analyse all nine Assembly elections held in the state since BJP’s inception in 1980. [related-post] Giving details, the leader said that category A will include those seats which the BJP has been regularly winning in the past elections and conditions for which are still favourable for the 2017 polls. Category B, the leader said, will include the seats in which BJP attained second or third position in the past and which require some extra effort to come out victorious in the next polls. The seats that leave the party with minimum hope for a win in 2017 will fall in category C and those that the party has always lost in the past with absolutely no chance of winning again will be placed in category D. Rampur Khas in Pratapgarh, and Kunda and Babaganj in Kaushambi districts are some of the seats that the party has never won. A senior BJP leader pointed out “various seats in UP” where population of Muslim voters has increased by nearly 60 to 80 per cent, These, the leader said, will likely be placed in category D as the party’s hope of winning them is “almost nil”. The leader added that “social equations as per populations of Backward and Scheduled Castes” would also be analysed during categorisation of seats. “The party will similarly analyse such Assembly segments where we could not get first position despite winning 71 (out of 80) Lok Sabha seats (in May last year),” the leader said. Of the 393 Assembly segments that fall under the 71 LS seats won by the BJP, its candidates stood second or third in as many as 65 of them. At the party’s core group meeting in Chitrakoot last week, sources inform that the party had resolved to keep doors “open for leaders from other political parties and give them tickets where BJP’s organisation is weak”. While Mathur, who headed the meet, maintained there was “no restriction” on leaders of other parties joining the BJP, he denied there has been any such decision to allot tickets to them.
