ENARADA, New Delhi, November 12, 2014
Within months of capturing power at the Centre with a clear majority of its own in the Lok Sabha and two Assemblies in their bag, the BJP is now aiming to put up a similar performance in the three upcoming Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Delhi.
Buoyed by the leadership of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, the BJP which got a clear majority on its own in Haryana and emerged as the single largest party in Maharasthra appears confident of doing so even in these three states.
While the dates for the 70-member Delhi Assembly has not yet been announced, the elections in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir are to be held in five phases – on November 25, December 2, December 9, December 14 and December 20.
Though BJP plans to go on its own in all three States, yet, the party has been sending feelers to smaller groups and the spadework is being done by none other than former RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav who is now party general secretary.
The prime minister too has made four visits to Jammu and Kashmir and spent Diwali with Indian soldiers at the Siachen Glacier sending signals of how the centre views the state.
With the target in crucial state of Jammu and Kashmir which continues to reel under terrorism and recently having faced the worst floods in a century being 44 plus in the 81-member Assembly, the BJP has been going all out.
What is of significance is the recent meeting that Modi had with former separatist leader Sajjad Lone who came out all praise for the prime minister who he said treated him like a brother and it remains to be seen how far this brotherly affection would take the two parties.
It is interesting to note that in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had done extremely well in all the three states and this is another factor that appears to be boosting the morale of that party.
While in Delhi, the BJP bagged all the seven Lok Sabha seats, in Jharkhand it bagged 12 of the 14 wiping out the Congress and in Jammu and Kashmir, it bagged three of the six seats wiping out National Conference and Congress who were unable to win even a single seat.
A recent opinion poll showed that BJP would get a clear majority of its own in Delhi while in Jharkhand it would emerge as the single largest party and take the number two position in Jammu and Kashmir.
In Jharkhand, the main fight is against the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Congress with the former having bagged two of the 14 seats with the remaining having been taken by BJP.
The strategy for the elections is being worked out by none other than BJP President Amit Shah who had been the key figure behind the party’s performance in Lok Sabha and later Haryana and Maharasthra Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, the Centre plans to deploy over 51,000 troops for Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand since the latter is affected by Naxal violence.
The Election Commission has also in place for Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections a “Plan B in place to shift polling to other, safer areas” in case of firing at border areas, which have been subject to heavy cross-border firing and several ceasefire violations by the Pakistani side.
“If the Supreme Court or Lieutenant Governor ask us to hold elections in Delhi, we will do so,” said Election Commissioner Mr Brahma.
Now with the Delhi Assembly being dissolved as none of the three major parties – BJP, AAP and Congress – staked claim, the ball is now in the court of the election commission to announce the dates.
Meanwhile, the AAP which scored a spectacular win in the Delhi Assembly polls last year bagging 28 seats has launched the “Delhi Dialogue” programme in a bid to connect with voters ahead of Delhi assembly elections.
The party under this programme would seek people’s opinion on how their ideal city should be.
“We wish to know what are the expectations of people and how they want their Delhi to be. We will interact with professionals, housewife, students, youth, women, people from villages, industrialists, people from JJ cluster and unauthorised colonies. We will then prepare a 50-point programme, prepare a blue-print and address these issues,” said former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who resigned after a 49-day stint over the issue of Lokpal Bill and later regretted having resigned.
As part of the campaign the party has formed a team comprising senior party functionaries like scribe-turned politician Ashish Khetan, Adarsh Shastri, who quit his high profile job to contest Lok Sabha ticket, banker-turned politician Meera Sanyal and Preeti Sharma Menon.
The programme is also being seen as party’s initiative to intensify its mass contact programme.
Since its rout in the Lok Sabha elections having won only four seats after contesting almost 400, its leader Kejriwal losing by a massive margin to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi, the party has been holding numerous mass contact programmes. It has also launched several wings like the students, youth, women, minority and traders wing.
