BJP's formula for enticing never-won constituencies

New Delhi, Feb 25 (UNI) In an effort to improve its acceptability factor among the voters in 158 Lok Sabha constituencies which have never returned even a BJP MP so far in the last 15 years, the party is dispatching 54 leaders from today to make an on the spot political assessment in view of the implementation of the Delimitation Commission (DC) report for the next polls.

Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, spokesperson of the party's Election Management Committee, told mediaperson here that the handpicked leaders would be making an objective political assessment in all the 24 states of the local political and social reasons for the BJP not making inroads at all in such huge geographical areas and the possibility of making deeper inroads in these constituencies. The possibility of entering into local electoral arrangements will also be explored.

The teams which would be visiting the cluster of these vital and vulnerable constituences from February 25 to March 20 before submitting their reports during the recess of the Budget Session of Parliament. They would also specially consider the ways of strengthening the party in 133 constituencies where the party ended up as a runner up and were never won by the BJP during all these years. The teams will also identify local issues that could come handy to make the party acceptable in the elections.

Regarding the 138 constituencies held by the BJP MPs, the party was holding consultations with the members about the changed geographies of the constituencies, their political implications and understand their seat preferences if they wanted to change over to any neighbouring constituencies because of new recommendations.

The silver lining of the whole exercise was that the party had won 296 seats on the BJP symbol in the last six LS polls which means that the party has an established political and social base to emerge victorious on its own in the House of 543 L S constituencies, Ms Swaraj said.

The party has realised the importance of the BJP office bearers not just the present lot but the office bearers for the last past two terms and enlist their support and advice on strengthening the party. Having worked in their respective areas their suggetions would go a long way in the party understanding the problems in the right spirit.

She declined to say the number of seats the BJP would contest in the next LS polls as it would depend on the talks with the allies who too would have ambition to expand their base besides their own geographical areas of influence.

Answering questions about selection of Rajya Sabha nominees, she said the recommendations have to come from the state units first before the party took a final decision taking all aspects into consideration.

The party leaders chosen for touring of the states include Mr Kiron Rijiju (Assam), Mr Arun Jaitley, Aravind Limbavali (AP) Mr M A Naqvi and Surendra Lat (Bihar), Mr Kalraj Mishra, Dharmendra Pradhan and Mrs Kiron Maheshwari (Jharkhand), Mr S S Ahluwalia (West Bengal), Mr Ravishankar Prasad, Mr Rajiv Rudy, Mrs Karuna Shukla, Mrs Maya Singh, Mr Harin Pathak, Mr Vikram Verma, Mr Vijay Goyal, Prakash Javadekar and Mr Ramesh Bais (Uttar Pradesh), Mr Santosh Gangwar (Uttarakhand), Mr V K Malhotra (Jammu and Kashmir), Mr Ananth Kumar (Goa), Mr Omprakash Dhakhar (Rajasthan), Mr Shantakumar and Satya Narain Jatiya (Delhi), Mr Vinay Katiyar, Mr Gopinath Munde (Gujarat), Mr Vamanacharya, Mr Sripad Naik, Mr M Venkaiah Naidu (Maharashtra), Mr Khaabela Swain (Chhatisgarh), Mr Devdas Apte (Orissa), Mr Manohar Parikkar (Karnataka), Mr Saivan Singh (Madhya Pradesh, Mr Thawarchand Gehlot and S N Jatiya (Haryana).

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