Maha polls: Will BJP score high by fielding 50 'party hoppers'?

As many as 50 candidates of BJP for the October 15 Assembly polls are 'importers' of other major political parties. Among them, 35 are from Congress and NCP together.

Most of these candidates are local influential leaders and the party hopes to benefit from their influence in their regions.
According to a report in Times of India, BJP has fielded such candidates from areas where it doesn't have any toehold. By doing so, the party is hoping that these candidates with considerable local clout would improve its vote share in the Assembly polls.

The Opposition parties have criticised BJP's move to field 'imports' of other parties. In fact, they have put BJP's candidate list on social media platforms. Taking a dig at BJP, Shiv Sena said that the party was finding it difficult to contest the Assembly polls on its own and so it has 'imported' candidates from other parties.

BJP has accepted giving tickets to few candidates from other parties. The party said that this decision was taken in the areas where it had suffered defeats in earlier polls.

Senior BJP leader Vinod Tawade has been quoted in the report as saying, "We never denied to have given tickets to such candidates who, in past, was associated with some other political party. We have only fielded such candidates from such constituencies where we have never won elections. Those leaders have a strong local connect, and will strengthened the party in upcoming State polls."

OneIndia News