Gandhinagar: During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Gujarat, two unscheduled meetings have drawn the attention of political readers and people.
Modi was in the state on Saturday and Sunday. Besides a series of official events, he held meetings with BJP leaders which were not scheduled earlier.
Sources from the party said ground feedback has alerted the Prime Minister.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a one-and-half-hour close-door meeting with Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel at the airport after landing in Gandhinagar.
Sources said Modi gave clear instructions to roll out more pro-people works and address unrest in the government employees. The meeting was also meant to give confidence to the Chief Minister that he need not worry. An interesting aspect of the meeting was the presence of Modi’s most trustworthy bureaucrat Chief Principal Secretary to CM K. Kailashnathan, said sources.
In another unscheduled meeting, the Prime Minister met the BJP core committee members on Sunday evening and took ground reports and later guided them on how to prepare the election strategy to counter the ‘freebies marketing’.
State Education Minister Jitu Vaghani’s defence was that on the party and the state government’s request Modi agreed to visit the party office and guide them for the Assembly elections.
Party sources told IANS, the party has been getting feedback on rising anti-incumbency, erosion of party fan-followers due to inflation and AAP’s ‘guarantee’ politics.
Sources said that till six months ago, the party leaders’ calculation was that AAP’s presence in elections will split anti-incumbency votes, benefitting the ruling party and their understanding was that it will dent into Congress’ vote bank.
But in the past six months, a lot of water has flown under the bridge, now leaders see AAP as a threat, and have started feeling that AAP has started denting the BJP’s vote bank. This is worrying the state and national leaders, said sources.
According to sources, the party is working on two points. First, is to give less time to political opponents to campaign in elections, and the party is mulling to prepone elections even if it is for two to three weeks. The second point is the party is also working on no-repeat theory, but is cautious to ensure that oldies don’t get annoyed and damage the party prospects. So if a sitting MLA or leader is denied a ticket, the party will consider nominating a candidate from such leader’s family, sources said.
–IANS
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