Lucknow: After its recent defeat in two by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling BJP has now changed its strategy for the campaign in coming months.
The party had initially decided to hold around two dozen rallies by party chief Amit Shah in Uttar Pradesh as part of its Maha Sampark campaign, along with booth level meetings of workers.
However, party sources, said that the emphasis now will be on mass contact programmes, under which party leaders will establish a dialogue with voters at the village level, and get a feedback on the government’s performance.
“This time we will focus on upper castes as well as Dalit and OBC dominated villages. The idea is to connect with the common man and try to make an assessment of where the party and the government are going wrong. This will be a more generalised view of the ground realities, and we will collect the feedback and then decide on course correction”, said a party functionary.
BJP sources said that the top party leadership, including chief minister Yogi Adityanath may also take part in these programmes, envisaging an aggressive public outreach to counter a formidable joint Opposition in Uttar Pradesh.
In fact, the chief minister on Saturday visited Hardoi district where he addressed the village heads before reviewing the development in the district.
“Our defeat in the by-elections has proved that despite our best efforts, our schemes are not reaching the target beneficiaries. We need to focus on direct dialogues with the common man instead of addressing rallies. There is still time for the general elections and we plan to set things right. The idea is to reach every section of the society to arrest the chances of a growing anti-incumbency against the ruling party”, the party functionary said.
The BJP hopes that the dialogues with people at the grassroots level will also help it in identifying corrupt and inefficient officials. It is noteworthy that a number of party MLAs have spoken about corruption on the government and inefficiency of officers.
Besides, the BJP wants to avoid rallies for the time being since these are immediately countered by Opposition parties. The party hopes to adopt a more quiet approach to connect with the voters.
The BJP leaders will also meet presidents of the booth-level committees to get a feedback on party’s preparedness at the lowest levels.
