Lucknow: After staying away from Uttar Pradesh for seven months, BJP national general secretary Sunil Bansal is back in Lucknow to take stock of the party’s preparedness for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Bansal has sought a detailed feedback from BJP leaders for seats in state which the party lost in the 2019 general elections.
The former state general secretary (organisation), is learnt to have focused on the Assembly segments of the parliamentary seats where the party’s performance came down after peaking in 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 assembly elections.
State leaders have been asked to step up work in the key assembly segments at the earliest.
The BJP plans to line up rallies of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party chief J.P. Nadda on 14 Lok Sabha seats in the days to come.
Nadda, who has already addressed a public rally in Ghazipur is expected to visit Saharanpur and Amroha in the next few days, which will be followed by Shah’s visit to some constituencies primarily held by BSP.
The BJP has already deployed a host of union ministers to coordinate on the said constituencies.
Sources said BJP leaders also deliberated on holding campaigns/public meetings of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and some of his cabinet colleagues in the weaker Assembly segments.
“The party plans to replicate the strategy of 2022 Assembly elections when it returned to power with a thumping majority despite a partial resurrection of the Samajwadi Party,” said a senior party functionary.
Bansal has stressed on devising public outreach campaigns while bolstering the coordination between the state government and the party organisation.
The BJP has been banking on public welfare schemes initiated by the Modi government to deepen its footprints in the regions where the party faces a resurgent opposition.
The strategy had worked to some extent in Rampur and Azamgarh which the BJP wrested from the SP in the by polls held last year.
The ruling party, however, failed to breach the SP bastion of Mainpuri, the seat that fell vacant after the demise of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
BJP lost Khatauli, which was won by SP-backed RLD candidate Madan Bhaiyya last year.
–IANS