With RSS inputs, BJP steps up spade work on 200 seats
Lucknow: In a strategic move for 2027 state elections, the BJP has stepped up its poll spadework in close to 200 assembly seats/segments of Uttar Pradesh where the party faced setbacks in the 2022 assembly and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP faced a significant dent in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when its tally shrank from 66 to 36, a decline of around 30 seats. In all, the BJP lost 44 Lok Sabha seats, which, party insiders said, translates into around 200 seats where the party needs to augment its organisational structure and boost its position.
The measure, sources said, was taken up after an exhaustive round of discussion with the RSS, the BJP's ideological fountainhead.
The Sangh, it is learnt, recently deliberated on a host of steps that were required to be taken by the BJP to counter an aggressive opposition, primarily the Samajwadi Party, which has been hoisting its tried and tested Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak (PDA) plank.
The party leadership has tasked state general secretary (organisation) Dharampal Singh to camp in the "vulnerable seats" and churn out remedial measures accordingly.
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Singh, who has already hit the ground running, is learnt to be meeting the key party functionaries – incumbent and former organisational leaders in a host of assembly seats/segments which the BJP lost in the 2022 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
"The motto of the meeting is 'Har Karya ke liye karyakarta aur har karyakarta ke liye karya' (work for every party worker)," said a senior BJP leader, highlighting how the state leadership was ensuring the engagement of party workers as part of ground-level preparations.
The BJP leader said that after a broader assessment of the prevailing ground-level situation is done, the party brass will start deploying teams of key party functionaries to bolster the grassroots campaign.
This poll groundwork will include booth-level empowerment to fortify the party's presence at the grassroots level and the outreach campaigns, including the ones like 'Gaon Chalo Abhiyan' to engage with rural voters and the 'Beneficiaries Sampark Abhiyan' to connect with recipients of govt welfare schemes.
Likewise, the party plans a digital engagement to facilitate direct communication with ground-level workers and enhance the dissemination of campaign messages.
The party also plans to chart out a Caste-Based Mobilisation campaign in response to the Samajwadi Party's successful caste-based outreach. The BJP, experts said, sought to sharpen its focus on non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Dalits, and Brahmins to consolidate its support base.
Sources said that the party sought to work on a two-pronged strategy of Hindutva-driven nationalism as well as a caste-based poll narrative.
While the recent terror attack in Pahalgam has already stroked the saffron pantheon to play up its nationalist agenda to the core, the BJP govt's recent decision to conduct caste enumeration in the forthcoming census has armed the saffron party to factor in caste dynamics in the overall scheme of things.
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