BJP poll strategy: Professional surveyors to assess MPs', MLAs’ performance

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), switching into 2024-election mode, has decided to rope in professional surveyors to assess the performance and popularity of its MPs. A decision is likely to be taken at the two-day meeting of office bearers in Delhi that ends on Tuesday, said a senior BJP leader from West Bengal.

The meeting has been convened to chalk out the party’s political strategies and take stock of its booth-level penetration ahead of assembly elections in nine states next year and the general elections in 2024.

Inauguration by Modi

All national office bearers, state unit chiefs, organisational general secretaries, state in-charges and co-in-charges and presidents of different cells of the party are attending the meeting presided over by BJP national president JP Nadda. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated and addressed the meeting. Earlier in the day, he cast his vote in the second-phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections.

The feedback of the surveys will be an important deciding factor in deciding the candidates for the Lok Sabha elections due in about one-and-a-half years. Visibility of the MPs in their respective constituencies, accessibility to voters, contribution in constituency development, and utilization of MPLAD funds will be some of the parameters to determine the performance.

Tested strategy

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had denied tickets to 99 of its 282 sitting MPs, which is over 35 per cent of its strength in the House. It had replaced almost 50 per cent MPs from Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes communities. The party will follow the same strategy in the 2024 polls to buck anti-incumbency.

The BJP has already identified 144 seats, including 134 it lost in 2019, to give added attention to offset any loss it might suffer due to non-performance of the sitting MPs.

“The party is aware that performances of many of our sitting MPs are not satisfactory and they will not be re-elected. A two-pronged strategy has been devised to make up for the possible loss,” said the BJP leader who refused to be named as they are not supposed to discuss party strategy with media.

The road ahead

Firstly, the party will replace non-performing MPs with better candidates based on the feedback of the surveys, the leader said. Secondly, it will give added focus in the constituencies where it came either second or third in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the anti-incumbency is against the sitting non-BJP MPs, he added.

Also read: With elections closing in, can BJP woo back Lingayats in Karnataka?

The party has decided to start preparing for the general elections while going for the elections in nine states next year.

Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana will go to polls next year.