A two-day meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national office-bearers ended here on Saturday, with a decision made on improving training programmes for party workers at the district and State levels to strengthen the organisation. The BJP affirmed that its government at the Centre had played a role in taking the nation to “greater heights of strength and prosperity”.
In closed-door meetings on the final day, BJP leaders are learnt to have said that the preparations would be started simultaneously for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as well as the Assembly elections in several States in 2022-23. A strategy will be formulated for making “weak” polling booths stronger with the formation of local committees.
BJP general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh said a new progarmme called ‘Seva, Sushasan Evum Ghareeb Kalyan’ (service, good governance and welfare of the poor) launched across the country. Specific strategies will also be formulated for each State going to polls during the next two years.
The BJP will fight next year’s Assembly election in Rajasthan with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its face, the party’s State president Satish Poonia said. “Faces are projected on certain occasions, but sometimes there is no need to do so... The BJP will fight the polls under the leadership of Mr. Modi,” Mr. Poonia said.
Mr. Poonia’s announcement indicated that former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje may not be projected as the chief ministerial candidate in the 2023 Assembly election despite her role in the State’s leadership. Ms. Raje’s relations with the party’s central leadership have been a subject of speculation since the Congress came to power in Rajasthan in 2018.
The BJP’s State unit heads, morcha heads and organisational general secretaries were present in the Jaipur. meeting. About 100 party functionaries attended different sessions and the closed-door consultations held during the two days of the meeting.
