With senior leaders in place for election management, Madhya Pradesh BJP has shifted into high gear for the assembly polls slated later this year in the state. Home Minister Amit Shah, considered the main poll strategist of the ruling party, will be visiting Bhopal this weekend, for the third time in 20 days.
A key decision that is emerging out of the flurry of high-level meetings is the holding of ‘Vijay sankalp yatra’ (victory resolution rally) – a typical BJP outreach activity ahead of assembly polls. Sources said that yatras will commence simultaneously, most likely in September first week, from four or five spots in different regions of the state.
Each of these yatras will be led by most prominent leaders including Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narendra Singh Tomar, state BJP president V.D. Sharma and BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya. Sources told THE WEEK that the details of the yatra will be final by mid-August.
Meanwhile, on the day he left Bhopal after holding a late night meeting with senior leaders on Wednesday, it was informed that Shah would reach Bhopal again on July 29, hold meetings with senior leaders and put up for the night here. On July 30, he will visit Indore to attend a booth workers’ convention, party sources said.
Shah visited Bhopal for the first late night high-level meeting on July 11, days after union ministers Bhupender Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw were made the Madhya Pradesh poll in-charge and co-incharge respectively. His second visit came on Wednesday; this time following the appointment of Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar as the Madhya Pradesh election management committee chairman.
In the Wednesday late night meeting, which went past midnight, decision is said to have been taken about the members of the various committees that will work in the state ahead of the polls – key among them the election management committee, which is likely to have 16 members including senior most leaders of state BJP and the campaign committee.
The other committees include the one overseeing tours of central leadership, special outreach campaign, 'Ghar-ghar jhanda' (flag at each home) campaign, Kamal Diwali initiative, publicity committee, assembly constituency feedback committee, media and media monitoring committees, social media committee, election commission and voting campaign committees. These committees are likely to be formally announced in the next two days, before Shah’s next scheduled visit.
Keeping to the current pattern of the BJP, Amit Shah has taken charge of planning in major poll-bound states like MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana and senior leaders – including union ministers – have been posted as poll in-charges. As these elections are the last major assembly elections to be held before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is likely to stick to its pattern of propping the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the party mascot.