A couple of months after it lost power in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP has set the ball rolling for the all-important Lok Sabha elections next year. At the party’s core committee meeting in Una on Sunday, the senior leaders part of the panel decided to work on booth management and focus on the “weak booths” in the state’s four parliamentary constituencies of Hamirpur, Kangra, Shimla, and Mandi. “We are working as per the strategy of the party high command. We are looking to work in areas where we have been weak. There will be awareness programmes about works carried out by Hon’ble PM and the policies of the government. The work on the ground has already begun," said state BJP president Suresh Kashyap. Party workers are also gathering information in areas where the BJP performed badly in the Assembly elections. As per officials in the party, 25 booths in each parliamentary constituency is the initial target. Senior leaders will spend time in the identified areas to interact with the public and promote party policies. Of the four Lok Sabha seats, the party currently holds three while Mandi is represented by Himachal Pradesh Congress chief Pratibha Singh. Rajya Sabha MP Indu Goswami will camp in Mandi to strengthen the organisation. The BJP will be at an advantage in Mandi district as it won nine out of the 10 seats there in the Assembly polls. BJP leaders have also issued instructions across the hierarchy to ensure discipline. In the Assembly elections, the party faced rebellions in more than 20 seats and is looking to avoid a similar situation ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. “We will focus on educating people about the development initiatives. The people also need to be made aware of the lack of stability within the Congress. They shut down offices and departments set up during the BJP rule which clearly shows their weakness. Our party only has progress on its agenda,” said state BJP spokesperson Karan Nanda. Meanwhile, the state working committee also met in Una on Sunday. In his address to the working committee, Leader of Opposition and former Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said BJP lost the Assembly election by 0.9 per cent of votes and that it was the first time in the state's history that a government had been formed on the back of such a slim margin. "It will not last long," he said. Thakur said that between 2007 and 2012, when Prem Kumar Dhumal was the chief minister, the BJP government took a loan of Rs 6,700 crore while in the five subsequent years, the Congress-led government took Rs 13,000 crore in loans. The current Congress government had already taken a loan of Rs 2,500 crore, he said. The state administration, Thakur claimed, was planning to discontinue the Himcare scheme and efforts were being made to close the “best schemes” such as Ayushman Bharat that have benefited lakhs of people. Dhumal termed the Congress government a “government of waiting” and said people were waiting for the party to fulfil the promises it had made in the run-up to the Assembly polls. The state working committee passed a resolution hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “world leader”. The resolution, moved by former state BJP president Dr Rajeev Bindal, stated that it was an honour for the country to host the G-20 summit and that Modi had cemented the country's global position. It also said the Modi government had been successful in re-establishing India’s cultural heritage, with its construction of a grand temple at the birthplace of Shri Ram, all-around development of Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham, and efforts to bring Kashmir into the mainstream by abrogating Article 370. — With PTI inputs
