Uttar Pradesh polls: How BJP is planning to woo women voters?

New Delhi, Nov 10: After Congress General secretary Priyanka Gandhi announced that 40 per cent of its tickets will be given for women candidates in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh elections, the ruling BJP has designed an elaborate plan to counter Congress' strategy to woo women voters.

The saffron party has planned to highlight the measures taken by ruling Yogi Adityanath's government in Uttar Pradesh over women's safety, women's empowerment and improved law and order situation in the state.

The BJP will be holding 'sammelans' to discuss the positive changes that happened during Adityanath's tenure in 'Kamal Shakti Samvad' which will be held in nine places - Jhansi, Moradabad, Kanpur, Agra, Meerut, Prayagraj, Shahjahanpur, Gorakhpur and Lucknow. The nine signifies 'shakti roops' of Goddess Durga.

The party has planned to rope in 2,000 women whose lives were changed after Yogi came to power.
The event, which will begin on November 14 in Jhansi, will be inaugurated by Mahila Morcha President Vanathi Srinivasan.

"The focus will remain on mahila suraksha. A look at how safe women feel in UP. Formation of anti-Romeo squads and other steps like Centre's steps for opening positions for women in the army and more participation in the police force have empowered women," Vanathi Srinivasan told news agency ANI.

The BJP has come up with this idea after Congress promised to reserve 40 per cent of its tickets to women candidates in the elections. Priyanka Gandhi also made a series of announcements including free smartphone for inter-pass girls and scooty for graduate girls to reach out to women voters.

The party has asked 50 workers from nine states to discuss and implement strategies. The women's wing aims to have discussions with the beneficiaries of government's schemes at booth level and also plans to open a call centre to aid women to avail government schemes, sources informed ANI.

"Our aim is to target 5,000 women per Assembly segment. So many beneficiaries of the government schemes are feeling a change in their lives and this would be an attempt at reaching out to them," said Srinivasan.

Meetings with women intellectuals and entrepreneurs will be organised by the party. The list of programmes was prepared after consultation with party president JP Nadda and national general secretary BL Santhosh.