Five takeaways from key BJP conclave: Modi as poll mascot, Ram Mandir plank, slamming Cong, INDIA

Showcasing Modi

The focus of the BJP’s convention remained on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who dominated its proceedings and the speeches made by the party leaders besides the cutouts put up at its venue.

PM Modi added a dash of ideology to his desired figure of 370 seats that he set for the BJP, saying that each party worker should spend all his energies until the polls on this target. He said this was not just a number but a tribute to Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerji, who died in confinement in Jammu and Kashmir during his agitation for the revocation of Article 370, which gave J&K special status.

The Modi government scrapped Article 370 in August 2019.

Ram Temple

The BJP’s National Council issued a detailed statement on the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, underlining the point that the party would have it as its key poll issue, even as it talked about the development work and welfare measures undertaken by the Modi government. It reflected PM Modi’s recurring pitch that development and Hindutva have to go together.

INDIA in crosshairs

The convention also became a platform for unleashing a scathing attack on the Congress party as well as the Opposition INDIA bloc. Union Home Minister Amit Shah chose to attack the INDIA alliance, framing the upcoming elections as a battle between a democratic BJP, where a “tea seller could become the PM”, and several dynastic parties which, he alleged, hoped only to make a son or a daughter the PM or the CM, and stifled talent and hard work of other leaders and workers not belonging to their dominating families. The PM chose to target the Congress in particular.

Modi pitch

PM Modi himself underlined in his address to the conclave on the opening day that the lotus symbol will be their candidate in all the seats throughout the country. It was thus made clear to the BJP leaders and workers that the PM’s leadership and the party’s symbol are all that should matter to them, irrespective of who their candidates would be.

This marked a continuum with the PM Modi’s speech at a rally in Bilaspur before the Chhattisgarh Assembly polls, held in November 2023, where the PM told the gathering that they should focus only on the lotus symbol and not on individual candidates.

Symbolic projection of collective face

While keeping the focus on PM Modi, the BJP convention sought to project symbolically a collective face of the party organisation. BJP president J P Nadda gave a detailed address on the opening day, highlighting the spectacular rise of the party and praising party workers for making the organisation powerful at the grassroots.

The resolution attacking the Congress and the Opposition, which was moved by Shah Sunday before the PM gave his concluding address, had three seconders — Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav, and Union Minister Arjun Munda. All three addressed the audience.

The cutouts set up by the BJP in different parts of the national capital featured the faces of even party veterans like L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in welcome messages to the participants. PM Modi however remained at the centre of the mega BJP event and its political message on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls.