Bypoll mixed bag, state polls set tone for BJP executive

“We will discuss the party’s preparations for the assembly elections next year. The party will finalise the details of the resolution tomorrow, BJP general secretary Arun Singh told The Indian Express.

BJP chief J P Nadda will kick off the meeting with his address and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s will be the valedictory speech.

Sources said there could be resolutions praising Modi for the vaccination dashboard crossing 100 crore single-dose shots, reduction in fuel taxes, and his “successful foreign visits,” including the recent climate commitments in Glasgow.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP and national head of the party’s media cell Anil Baluni said that Sunday’s meeting, scheduled from 10 am to 3 pm in the NDMC convention centre, would be unique. “Keeping Covid in mind, the meeting will be hybrid and technology-enabled. We will have one platform in the national capital and all state capitals will have one venue each from where state leaders who are in the national executive Council will join in,” Baluni said.

So, national office-bearers and Central ministers will attend in the capital while state leaders will join virtually from their respective capital cities.

BJP reconstituted its national executive last month with 80 regular members, 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees.

Weighing on leaders’ minds will be the setback in the recent by-elections: the BJP lost one Lok Sabha and three Assembly seats in Himachal where it is in power; in Karnataka, newly appointed Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai could not swing Hanagal Assembly constituency that falls in his home district; and its candidates were trounced in Rajasthan.

The BJP registered spectacular victories in the by-elections in Assam and Madhya Pradesh and in Telangana, a state where the party is working hard to expand its footprint.

“The points and programs we discussed in the recent meeting of the national office bearers would be adopted as part of the party’s programs, “ said a BJP leader.

With an adverse discourse on the handling of the second Covid wave threatening to dent the government’s image in the country as well as abroad, the office bearers had discussed strategies to counter it, using the support of the Indian diaspora and the huge bank of Covid volunteers it created during the pandemic.

Elections in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa, and Congress-ruled Punjab, are scheduled to be held early next year while Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh vote later in 2022.