BJP nails progress, safety on poll plank

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat will go to the hustings riding on its poll plank -Purna Vikas, Purna Suraksha.

The party’s star campaigner chief minister Narendra Modi and other national leaders including NDA’s prime ministerial candidate, LK Advani, who will be trying his luck for the sixth time from Gandhinagar is all set to campaign on this theme for Lok Sabha polls during the more than 100 election meetings they will address.

It is learnt that the central leadership of the party is confident that Narendra Modi alone would single handedly take care of all the 26 Lok Sabha constituencies that will go to the polls on April 30. It is believed that he would address a series of meetings — more than 60 — in both urban and rural areas across the state.

Next to him Advani would address election meetings in four phases starting from April 2. He will be addressing meetings in Gandhinagar constituency and also in central and south Gujarat region.

State BJP organising secretary Bhikhubhai Dalsania who has returned after apprising the central leadership about Gujarat scenario told DNA that the party would mobilise a work force of around 2.5 lakh who have been trained as a part of ‘One booth 10 youths’ programme.

According to Dalsania chief minister and other ministers and organisational leaders have already conducted 100-odd meetings and functions to spread word about the development made by the BJP government in the past six to seven years in the state.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that the BJP state unit president Purshottam Rupala and his deputies have started scrutiny of the list of probable candidates prepared on basis of recommendations made by party observers. Sources said that the selected BJP leaders have started contacting the opposition Congress party members who have shown willingness to join the saffron party before the Lok Sabha polls.

A senior BJP leader said that the party would prefer only those who fulfiled the requirement norms fixed by the party - winnability, committment and clean image. Again it has become almost certain that a majority of 14 sitting MPs would be dropped this time as delimitation exercise has changed the equation in several seats including Kutch, Ahmedabad, Bardoli, Patan and Dhandhuka.

The party will definitely follow the pattern it had adopted in assembly elections when more than 40 sitting MLAs were dropped on the basis of their performance which was not up to the mark.

As usual the sincere and committed faces with RSS background would be given priority while finalising the list of the candidates. A panel three candidates for each constituency will be prepared once the short listing process is completed.

However, the final decision of the candidates at the state-level would be taken by Narendra Modi as he has successfully conducted this process in all the elections ranging from state assembly to municipalities to panchayats and the BJP has made clean sweep at all these elected bodies since 2002.

Senior ministers have been entrusted election duties and all of them will be camping in respective constituencies after Holi. They have been asked to contact the voters either through public meetings, road shows, community meetings or door-to-door campaign.
They will highlight the development and the safety aspects in the state.

The ministers and state-level leaders will also spread the message of Vanvasi Bandhu yojana, Sagar khedu and Krishi yojana aimed at welfare of tribals, farmers and fishermen who constitute a major chunk of almost 3.5 crore voters of Gujarat.

Senior party leaders Jayantilal Barot, Kaushik Patel and Jhaverbhai Chavda on Friday held a series of meetings with important workers of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar constituencies.

In another development all the election-related cells of the party have been reactivated and their convenors including Yamal Vyas, Shashiranjan Yadav, Dr Bharat Gariwala, Dr Hitesh Sanghvi among others have started their drills while the media team at the party`s state headquarters at Khanpur have started renewing contact with the print and electronic media.