In UP, RSS to help BJP select right candidates

New Delhi: Ahead of the BJP’s first central election committee (CEC) meeting for the coming Assembly elections in five states, including UP, the RSS brass has been holding a brainstorming session in Lucknow so that the BJP fields “winnable” candidates. The BJP CEC is likely to meet on Wednesday and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also expected to attend the meeting.

The sangh parivar is desperately trying to end BJP’s “14-year-old vanvaas” in this politically crucial state. RSS senior leaders Dattatreya Hosabale and Krishna Gopal, sources said, are holding deliberations with sangh’s kshetra-pracharaks and prant-paracharks from UP. They are deliberating on feedback on issues like caste-combinations, dominant caste, performance of candidate who won last time and credibility and “influence” of BJP’s prospective candidate, on each and every Assembly constituency. BJP’s national joint general secretary Shiv Prakash, an RSS man, is also part of this brainstrorming session, which has been going on since Tuesday, which is also collecting feedback on issues that could be highlighted during campaigning.

At the RSS meeting at Nirala Nagar in Lucknow, sources said, the sangh brass also deliberated on a contentious issue of how many candidates, who have joined the saffron fold from other political outfits, should be fielded.