PM Modi rallies to woo Jats, curb factionalism

New Delhi: Amid indications that dissidence over ticket distribution and factionalism could mar prospects of some senior BJP leaders, including state ministers, in BJP ruled Haryana, saffron party’s poll managers have added two more rallies of its “star campaigner” Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the concluding day of the campaigning in the poll bound state. Also, with the dominant Jat votebank seemingly divided over whether to favour the BJP and its “people centric policies” or the Jat-dominated parties, the saffron party’s poll managers want Mr Modi’s charisma to win over the numerically dominant Jat community.

Though the BJP is confident of retaining power in the state as the Opposition camp remains divided, the saffron party’s poll managers are worried about some of its senior leaders’ poll prospects due to dissidence, factionalism and the Jat votebank. In the Jat dominated state, the BJP had given first non-Jat chief minister, Manohar Lal Khattar.

As per the earlier schedule, the Prime Minister was to be in Maharashtra on the last day of the campaigning but now he will be addressing two rallies in Haryana’s Sirsa and Rewari.

Haryana, along with Maharashtra, will go to polls on October 21 and the BJP has set a target of ‘Mission 75 plus.’ The BJP had won 47 of the total 90 Assembly seats during the last Assembly polls when it formed it first government in the state.

Along with dissidence and factionalism, the politically and numerically dominant Jats also seem to be favouring the fledgling outfit, Jannayak Janata Party(JJP), floated by former Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala in December last year after the feud among the former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala’s clan. The BJP’s assessment also shows that on Assembly seats, where instead of the JJP, the Congress has an influential candidate, the Jats are preferring the Congress. And its not just the Jat dominated seats that the saffron poll managers are worried about. Reports reaching the BJP’s poll managers suggest that factionalism could also damage poll prospects of some of its senior leaders in Ahirwal dominated Assembly berths. During the last Assembly polls, some of its senior leaders, including who were accommodated in the Khattar-led government, had won with a margin of less than six thousand votes.