Modi rallies, cluster campaigns: BJP’s prelude to 2024 polls in Bengal

Rallies by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and night-stay by Union ministers are among multi-pronged strategies the BJP has drawn to win Lok Sabha seats it had lost last time, going off the block well ahead of a beleaguered opposition.

Dividing the 144 seats, including 24 in West Bengal, it could not win in 2019, into 40 clusters, the saffron party has decided to let the prime minister address at least one meeting in each of these clusters before the poll bugle is formally blown.

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As per the plan, next year the prime minister is likely to hold at least three rallies in West Bengal, a senior state BJP leader told The Federal. He said the state unit will soon decide about the venue of the meetings – one to be held in the northern region of the state and two in southern Bengal.

The rallies will be part of the ramp-up drive Modi will do in 40 clusters across the nation as a prelude to the actual campaign the BJP will launch ahead of the general elections. The drive will conclude six months prior to the announcement of elections, the BJP leader said.

Apart from Modi, other senior BJP leaders including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party’s national president J P Nadda will also address public meetings in those pockets of the state where its base is weak.

Bait of new schemes

The talking points in these rallies will be the various centrally-sponsored welfare schemes and their “success stories,” BJP sources said. In West Bengal, the Centre and the state government are at loggerheads over the “ownership” of these welfare schemes.

The Trinamool-Congress government in the state complains that though these schemes are jointly funded by the Centre and the state, the former takes all credits.

To get maximum mileage, efforts would be made to squeeze-in the rallies with official programmes of the prime minister where he would launch new projects or schemes, the BJP sources added.

Union ministers as cluster in-charges

In another significant policy decision, the BJP has decided that its 2024 election strategy for Bengal and a few other “critical states” such as Bihar would be directly monitored by Amit Shah, according to BJP insiders.

The BJP has also assigned Union ministers as cluster in-charge as part of its Lok Sabha Pravas Yojana, a special initiative launched in June-July to increase its presence in the constituencies it lost last time.

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These ministers have been asked to spend at least a couple of days in the constituencies included in the cluster they have been made in-charge. Jyotiraditya Scindia, Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan, Hardeep Singh Puri, Pankaj Chaudhury, Kapil Moreshwar Patil, Virendra Kumar, Ajay Bhatt, Rameshwar Teli, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, Pratima Bhowmik are among the “Pravas Ministers” deputed for Bengal.

The ministers are to visit the constituencies assigned to them to make assessment of the party-position and give necessary suggestions, the sources said. They will hold public rallies, meetings with party workers, particularly booth committees.

One of the major roles of the ministers will be to draw a roadmap for the booth “sashaktikaran (strengthening)” mission, the sources disclosed.

Working on ‘weak’ areas

As reported by The Federal earlier, the BJP in May this year had identified 78,000 booths across the country where the party organisation is weak. The target is to enroll at least 30 new members in each of these booths ahead of the announcement of schedules for the parliamentary elections.

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Bengal BJP leaders have been asked to increase their public outreach as in many weak booths in the state it does not even have 30 members, sources added.

In sharp contrast to the BJP, the opposition’s strategy for the elections due in another two years still remains unclear as attempts to unite all non-NDA parties for a joint front against BJP has been proved futile so far.