NEW DEHI, June 17: The perennially in election mode, the BJP has geared up for the coming elections to four states within days of completing the high-pitch Lok Sabha elections and forming the third successive government led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The BJP on Monday named the party in-charges for poll preparations in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir, all due before the end of the year but long to go before the announcement of dates. Incidentally, in most of these states, the BJP had not fared very well in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections.
For the very important state of Maharashtra, the party has picked two Union Ministers. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav has been appointed the in-charge while Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw will be the co-in-charge.
Another Union Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has been handed charge of Haryana and he will be assisted by former Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb.
In Jharkhand, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and newly appointed Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be the in-charge and he will be helped by Assam Chief Minister and the BJP’s go-to man in the north-east, Himanta Biswa Sarma.
The preparations for the Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir will be handled by Union Coal and Mines Minister G Kishan Reddy.
Of all the Assembly elections that are coming up, Maharashtra will get the most attention not only because it is home to the financial capital of the country or it is the second-largest state in terms of Lok Sabha seats, but also since the BJP is fighting the Assembly elections with an entirely new coalition. It is now allied with the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP and is facing off against the Congress-Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)-NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) coalition.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections the BJP had won 23 of the state’s 48 seats and had got 41 in an alliance with the undivided Shiv Sena. Its new coalition has managed to achieve victory in only 17, with the BJP getting just nine. The Congress rose from one seat to emerging as the single-largest party in the state, clinching 13 on its own and 30 with its allies.
Bhupender Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw were in charge of Madhya Pradesh last year, where the BJP pulled off a stunning victory – winning 163 of 230 seats – despite being in power in the state nearly uninterrupted since 2003. The party was said to be on a sticky wicket ahead of the polls and Mr Yadav and Mr Vaishnaw played an important role in turning things around.
Haryana is another state where the BJP is reported to be struggling a little and this was borne out by its tally being halved to five in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections, which it had swept the last time around. The BJP replaced Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar with Nayab Singh Saini ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and the party is banking on Mr Pradhan and Mr Deb to return to power in the state for a third consecutive term.
The Madhya Pradesh link is apparent in Jharkhand too, where Mr Chouhan has been made the in-charge. Mr Sarma is seen as a troubleshooter and his skills may come in handy in a state where the BJP is trying to oust the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led government.
Jammu and Kashmir will have its first Assembly polls since 2014 and the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. The BJP did not contest this year’s Lok Sabha polls in Kashmir and won both seats in Jammu, where there have been a spate of terrorist attacks last week.
(Manas Dasgupta)