Polls nine months aways, Rajasthan BJP shift gears

Shifting gears, the Rajasthan BJP is now in the poll mode with senior party leaders now looking to analyse the political developments across state ahead of the assembly elections that are likely to be held in December this year.

A group of ministers and senior party leaders, including state BJP president Ashok Parnami, will now be holding regular meetings at the state party office where they will collect and collate feedback from district office-bearers and work out electoral strategies.

“With the elections nearing, the political scene in the state is changing rapidly and so we are also becoming more active. The ministers and organisation leaders will sit together and take stock of the developments across the state and work out a response. The meetings will be held on regular basis,” said Parnami.

While BJP suffered a routed in the recent bypolls to two Lok Sabha and one assembly seats, the party’s morale got a boost after Meena community heavyweight Kirori Lal Meena joined BJP along with two other MLAs of National People’s Party (NPP).

Sources said that attempts were being made to pacify disgruntled leaders within the BJP and convince them to take up responsibilities ahead of the assembly elections. Poaching of leaders from the rival parties is also not ruled out.

The BJP has also resumed its jan sunvai (public hearing) programme at the party office with two ministers taking up the issues related to their department on daily basis.

“The BJP has been doing good work for the past four years, but due to some reasons we lost the by-elections. We have been going through the reasons for the loss and taking corrective steps,” Parnami said.

The state party chief agreed that “Kirori Lal Meena’s induction will strengthen the party.”

Ministers believed to enjoy confidence of chief minister Vasundhara Raje, including Rajendra Rathore (panchayati raj), Prabhulal Saini (agriculture), Yunus Khan (road transport), and Rajpal Singh Shekhawat (indutsry) are part of the group that will be holding regular interactions with senior organisational leaders.

Raje is also going the extra mile to woo the rural voters. In her reply to the appropriation bill in the assembly on March 6, she announced several irrigation and drinking water projects and extended the benefit of loan waiver up to Rs 50,000 from cooperative banks to all farmers irrespective of land holding.