- By Akanksha Verma
- Sun, 20 Aug 2023 12:14 PM (IST)
- Source:IANS
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has drawn up an extensive campaign plan in Madhya Pradesh, which goes to Assembly polls later this year. The central leadership has taken complete command of the situation in the state as BJP purportedly fears anti-incumbancy and voter fatigue with longest-serving Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
BJP is all set to launch a political 'cluster bombing' strategy, under which 230 legislators from Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh will be deployed by the party high command in all the assembly constituencies of Madhya Pradesh, news agency IANS reported. Each legislator will be reponsible for the execution of the the task assigned by the party leadership.
The 230 BJP legislators arrived in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh' capital city, on Saturday. The BJP leaders will be assigned one assembly seat each today and they will move to the respective constituencies to carry out the task given by the party's Central Election Committee (CEC). Over the next one week, the legislators will hold meetings withlocal party leaders, workers as well as people. They will then submit a detailed "report card" of each of the 230 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh.
"Deployment of 230 MLAs from four states is a part of the BJP's new strategy and all these legislators will utilise their experiences for the next seven days to execute the plan. Our central leadership and the sangthan (organisation) have made an elaborate plan for it. We all believe that our efforts will be fruitful in view of assembly elections," said Khajuraho Lok Sabha MP and state BJP president VD Sharma.
ALSO READ: Chandrayaan-3 Completes Final Deboosting, To Undergo Internal Checks Before Landing On Moon
The 'cluster bombing' plan has been devised to tackle anti-incumbency, internal rifts and face-fatigue with CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, which may give an edge to Congress in Madhya Pradesh, IANS quoted a Delhi-based senior journalist as saying. "Deploying MLAs from outside could be the first step of the BJP and it will proceed step by step on the basis of inputs received from each of the constituencies. The role of each MLA deployed in a particular constituency will be well-defined," he added.
Each BJP MLA will meet influential people from different sections, and may also prepare a report card on caste equation, study resilience within the area. They would also seek people's opinion about local leaders. He further said the party will strategise further on the basis of the information collected by these 230 MLAs.
What Is Cluster Bombing?
Political 'cluster bombing' means deployment of party leaders by the top brass to a particular region with a given mission. "They (MLAs) are likely to dig deep to understand the issues in the particular constituency as their reports will be crucial to frame further strategy. And in this entire process, the booth-level workers are going to play crucial roles," the journalist said.
BJP, which had been in power in Madhya Pradesh since December 2003, lost the 2018 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections to Congress. With 114 seats and the support of independent MLAs, the grand old party had formed the government with Kamal Nath at the helm. However, a political crisis broke within the party, engineered by Jyotiraditya Scindia (now Union Minister from BJP). Scindia-led faction parted ways with Congress in March 2020, and joined BJP, thus ousting Congress from power.
