BJP national president J P Nadda on Monday categorically asked his leaders not to leave a stone unturned to see that party wins all the nine Assembly elections coming up this year as its the prelude to 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Of the nine states, the BJP is in power in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Tripura and it’s a part of ruling coalition in Nagaland and Meghalaya.
“He exhorted the party to be ready with full commitment to see that the BJP wins all nine states this year as a prelude to 2024. We should not lose a single state. The party workers have to tighten the belt and the party should not be defeated,” BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, quoting Nadda’s address in the two-day national executive meet, which began here on Monday.
Nadda said that the party cadres and the state units will have to follow what Gujarat, where the BJP achieved “extraordinary and historic win” in the recent Assembly election, had done. “The Prime Minister had led the election from the front….and the state unit, with all its leaders and workers, worked from the booth level… The hard work and the booth-level work will have to be copied,” Prasad said, citing Nadda’s message to the party workers.
Referring to Himachal Pradesh debacle, Nadda said the party as an organisation had failed to read the intensity of the anti-incumbency factor and could not work to contain it, sources said. Nadda said rebels ignored the party’s interests, a source said.
“He [Nadda] said we had to break the cycle (of BJP and Congress coming to power in alternative terms), but we could not. The BJP has lost Himachal Pradesh by less than one per cent voter margin. The vote difference between the Congress and the BJP in Himachal Pradesh is close to 37,000. It’s a matter of happiness but we have to correct ourselves,” Prasad told reporters.
The BJP, which had made considerable gains in terms of electoral victories but has lost most of its traditional allies, maintained that the party had not dropped any of its old partners. Asked if the BJP would re-align with its erstwhile allies to ensure it wins the states, Prasad said: “The BJP has not dropped any of its allies. The Shiromani Akali Dal and Nitish Kumar (of JD -U) left us. Those who switched sides for greener political pastures, will be taught lessons by the people.” The veiled reference was to Kumar, who according to BJP leaders, is now trying to be the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition parties.
The BJP is gearing up for elections in key states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka where it is expecting a direct battle against the main opposition Congress, later this year. In Telangana, another poll-bound state, the BJP has been desperate to emerge as an alternative to the state ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).
