BJP to have low-profile assembly poll campaign

Having failed to woo voters up to its expectations during the Lok Sabha polls, BJP today said it will have a low-profile campaign with no attacks on the prime minister and keeping away Varun Gandhi, whose hate-speech cost the party dearly.

Sharing details of the forthcoming poll campaign in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh, newly appointed in-charge of the party's election campaign Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, "BJP will start its campaign from October 1.

All senior leaders will take part including L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and M Venkaiah Naidu."
   
Chief ministers of BJP-ruled states like Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Narendra Modi (Gujarat), B S Yeddyurappa (Karnataka), Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (Uttarakhand), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) and Prem Kumar Dhumal (Himachal Pradesh) will also campaign for the party.

However, when asked if Pilibhit MP Varun Gandhi will campaign, Naqvi said, "If the state units demand, Varun Gandhi will go." Party sources said till now no such demand has been made by any of the three BJP state units.

However, Naqvi maintained the party has asked Varun to keep himself free for the campaign in case there is a demand.

Other changes include not attacking Manmohan Singh as a "weak prime minister" as this strategy had back-fired in the Lok Sabha campaign, party sources said.