Sports event to help BJP connect with youth

New Delhi: In an attempt to reach out to the first-time voters ahead of the crucial municipal polls in the city, the Delhi BJP is organising a sporting event, ‘Khel Delhi Khel’ (KDK), to connect with the young voters between the age group of 18 to 21 years. Union urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu is likely to inaugurate the event on Sunday.

The convener of KDK, Vinay Mani Tripathi, told this newspaper that organising a sporting event to connect with the youths is the brainchild of the Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari and it has received overwhelming response from the public. “395 teams have contacted us online and around 85 per cent of them have confirmed their participation in the six sports,” said Mr Tripathi, adding that a large number of requests for participation have been also received offline and the final number of participants will be around 700.

The party invited participation in six sports — Kho-Kho, Kabbadi, Volleyball, Basketball, Football, and Bodybuilding. Matches will be held between February 26 and March 4 in five different venues across the city and the final competition of bodybuilding will be held at the Commonwealth Ground at the CWG Games Village near Akshardham Temple.

The winner in each category will be given a trophy along with prize money of Rs 51,000. The first runner-up and the second runner-up will get a trophy and Rs 21,000 and Rs 11,000 respectively.

Party sources said that through the sporting event, the Delhi BJP will try to connect with young voters, specially the first time voters, who will use their franchise for first the time in civic polls in April. “This is new way to connect to young voters and with the good response, it seems we hit the right chord,” Mr Tripathi  added.

During the inauguration, apart from Mr Naidu, the party has invited all the seven Lok Sabha member from the city, Union sport minister Vijay Goel, mayors of three BJP ruled municipal corporations and other senior leaders of state unit.