BJP, Narendra Modi turn gaze to 2014 elections

    BJP leaders have drawn up a 100-day plan for Narendra Modi during which they want him to hold rallies not only in traditional strongholds, but also states where the party has only a marginal presence

New Delhi: The massive victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and the strong mandate it wrested in Delhi and Chhattisgarh have got party leaders speaking optimistically about returning to power at the centre after a gap of 10 years with its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi leading the charge against the ruling Congress.

 Sensing a wave in favour of Modi, the central leadership of the BJP has started planning for the Lok Sabha election due in May. Days before the assembly election results were announced, party leaders met in the national capital to strategize for the general election, indicating a degree of confidence in winning the just-concluded assembly elections.

“After analysing the election results in these four states, it is clear that BJP has benefited from the popularity of Narendra Modi in these four states,” BJP president Rajnath Singh told reporters on Sunday.

BJP leaders have drawn up a 100-day plan for Modi during which they want him to hold rallies not only in traditional strongholds such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which comprise 120 Lok Sabha seats, but also Odisha, where the party has only a marginal presence.

Modi is set to address around eight rallies in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, beginning on 28 December with Varanasi, the holy town that is a BJP stronghold.

 

 The 4-0 sweep in the assembly elections is a major boost for the party, which now senses that it could realize its ambition of crossing the 200-seat mark in the Lok Sabha. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi account for 72 Lok Sabha seats and the party aims to win at least 55-60 of them, said a BJP leader who was part of the meeting called by Rajnath Singh in Delhi to make plans for Modi. He declined to be named.

BJP leaders say the victory in the four states will also help Modi consolidate his position and put the party in a position of strength in discussions about the election strategy with existing alliance partners and in attempts to seek new alliance partners.

The part has begun the groundwork for forming governments with party president Singh appointing observers to be sent to the four states where it has emerged victorious. After a meeting of its parliamentary board, Singh said, “Let me make it clear that we will form governments in all the four states and we will have our chief ministers there.

 

 

 

The top leaders, including Modi, decided to send observers to Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to complete the formalities of staking claim. “Sushma Swaraj, Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Ananth Kumar will go as observers to Madhya Pradesh, Venkaiah Naidu, J. P. Nadda and Dharmendra Pradhan to Chhattisgarh, Arun Jaitley, Amit Shah and Kaptan Singh Solanki to Rajasthan and Nitin Gadkari and Thawar Chand Gehlot to Delhi,” Singh said.

Political analysts say the BJP will use this victory to pressurise regional parties to join hands with it under Modi’s leadership.

“The BJP will want a greater say with its existing alliance partners and will now seek new alliance partners. This win will allow Modi and BJP to now negotiate with regional parties from a position of strength. The BJP is going to town to point out how Modi decimated the Congress, even in Delhi which has been a Congress bastion,” said Jai Mrug, a Mumbai-based political analyst.

Leaders of the party are of the view that the 4-0 win will help Modi stamp his “unquestionable authority” over the party, so that important leaders who opposed his leadership in the past will now fall in line.

The BJP strategy revolves around Modi at the centre, along with several state leaders such as Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh, Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh, Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan and Harsh Vardhan of Delhi.

The BJP campaigns in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh followed this strategy, where the party took a backseat to the trio of Modi, Chouhan and Singh. “While an important role was played by the two chief ministers, Modi was the catalyst in these elections and the result shows that there is a Modi wave in the country,” said Rajiv Pratap Rudy, BJP general secretary.

BJP leaders like Chouhan, who had opposed Modi’s anointment as the prime ministerial candidate before the assembly elections, are now expected to fall in line with the leadership. Modi held 14 rallies in Madhya Pradesh although Chouhan had told the central leadership that making Modi the prime ministerial candidate would put the chief minister in a difficult position in the run-up to the assembly election. 

 

 

 Muslims play a crucial role in deciding the outcomes in 40 of the 230 assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, some BJP leaders say. But a BJP leader said, “The differences on the appointment of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate are now a matter of the past.” He too requested anonymity.

BJP leaders said Modi was used the most in the Rajasthan and Delhi campaigns. Former Rajasthan chief minister Raje wanted Modi’s help to counter the Congress whose social welfare schemes had made it popular.

The presence of Modi alongside Raje is also thought to have helped discipline dissident state BJP politicians, while drawing young voters to tilt the scales in favour of the party.

“Narendra Modi’s real impact will be seen in the Lok Sabha elections. The vote against Congress in Delhi and Rajasthan was also because of the performance of Congress at the centre,” said Bidyut Chakrabarty, a political science professor at Delhi University.

BJP leaders said that Modi’s presence in Delhi meant that the BJP was able to break the dominance of the Congress party in the national capital. “We have seen for the first time that traditional voters of the Congress party also voted for Narendra Modi and BJP in Delhi, which is a huge setback for the Congress,” said a parliamentary board member of BJP who asked to remain anonymous

 VIKASH CHANDRA MISHRA
PGDM 1ST YEAR
SOURCE: MINT