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The BJP leadership on Wednesday discussed its strategy for the constituencies in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh where it expects a tough contest in the Assembly elections later this year, sources said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and BJP president J P Nadda were among the top BJP leaders who assessed the party’s position based on the feedback provided by the state units, sources said. Most members of the BJP’s Central Election Committee, central leaders in charge of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and former Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh also participated in the deliberations.
BJP insiders said that along with the “panna pramukh” strategy in which party workers are given the responsibility of pages voters’ list, the BJP has also been categorising constituencies in terms of winnability. Sources said the BJP would give “special focus” to almost a third of the seats in Chhattisgarh as they are categorised as tough constituencies. The party has also readied a panel of candidates for each of these seats, according to insiders.
BJP functionaries said the meeting of the top leadership months before the elections are scheduled to be held indicates the significance of these state polls. BJP leaders admitted that the outcome of the elections in Rajasthan, Telangana, and Mizoram, apart from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, would prove crucial for the party’s Lok Sabha election preparations.
At the meeting, among the constituencies discussed were the ones in which the party suffered major setbacks in the previous Assembly elections. In the 2018 state polls, the BJP lost power in both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, but it succeeded in toppling the Congress government in the latter after just over a year. It won only 15 of the 90 seats in the Chhattisgarh Assembly while the Congress bagged 68. The BJP’s tally was 109 in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly while the Congress’s was 114.
The BJP managed to turn things around in both states in the Lok Sabha elections in May 2019. It won nine of the 11 constituencies in Chhattisgarh and 28 of the 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh.
