BJP presses UP poll button: Bring back alienated cadres

The BJP leadership has decided to deploy 15 party wholetimers in UP to tone up the organisation in the run-up to the Assembly elections scheduled for next year.

The BJP leadership has decided to deploy 15 party wholetimers in UP to tone up the organisation in the run-up to the Assembly elections scheduled for next year.

Party sources said the BJP ‘‘needs to do a lot more than this to increase its prospects in the state, but our first priority is to put the organisation back on the rails.’’ Measures to make state leaders put their act together and strive for an expansion of the support base would be taken up later, they said.

A total of 200 fulltime workers, trained by the RSS, are working in the BJP. The leadership is busy scanning the lists so that they can select the best among them.

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The tasks at hand for wholetimers are to get all alienated workers back into the party fold and form booth-level committees well in advance. According to the feedback relieved by the leadership from the ground, a large number of old party workers, all loyal to the RSS, have turned their back on the BJP for various reasons, including an opportunistic alliance with BSP leader Mayawati. The leadership feels that these wholetimers would be effective in winning them back to the BJP.

The UP BJP already has seven slots for ‘‘pracharaks.’’ Nagendra, state general secretary (organisation), leads the pack. The party has divided the state unit into six regions headquartered at Meerut, Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi and Gorakhpur, each having an organising secretary. The services of the fresh stock would be placed at the disposal of regional organising secretaries.

The first to be served with fresh posting orders is Manohar Lal Khattar, who is presently working in Jammu. Khattar was in charge of Haryana earlier.

Police personnel seen to control the situation during a massive protest over the statehood demand and the inclusion of Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule, in Leh on Wednesday. (ANI Video Grab)

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