E-Paper
Punjab: After bypoll drubbing, BJP gears up for upcoming civic body elections
After losing the byelection in all four assembly segments, the Bharatiya Janata Party has now started gearing up for contesting the civic body polls to be held by December-end in Punjab.
After losing the byelection in all four assembly segments, the Bharatiya Janata Party has now started gearing up for contesting the civic body polls to be held by December-end in Punjab.
A high-level meeting, chaired by party’s national general secretary Tarun Chugh and Punjab affairs in-charge and former chief minister of Gujarat Vijay Rupani, was held in Jalandhar to chalk out strategy for the elections, besides directing leadership and workers to resume party’s membership drive.
Senior leaders from across the state remained present at the meeting but party’s state president Sunil Jakhar was conspicuous by his absence.
As per the notification issued by the state government, the election to five municipal corporations of Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Patiala and Phagwara will be held by the end of December.
One of the senior BJP leaders said a separate meeting of core committee was held specifically to discuss party’s approach to contest upcoming elections with sheer dedication.
“The teams of senior BJP leaders are going to visit the cities, where the elections are due, in order to boost the party workers. Even as we failed to win a single seat in parliament elections and recently concluded assembly bypoll on four seats, but the party’s vote share has increased considerably in 2024,” said a senior leader.
The party’s vote share has almost doubled and gone up from 9.63% in the 2019 election to 18.56% in 2024. It was 6.60% in 2022 state assembly polls.
Punjab BJP’s general secretary Anil Sarin said the party is going to contest the elections on the party symbol.
“We have chalked out the strategy in detail to go full throttle in the civic body polls as the party and its policies have been receiving massive response from the people of Punjab especially in urban areas,” he said.
He added that the process related to selection of candidates will be briefed to the local units.
Meanwhile, Party’s membership drive in-charge and veteran leader Manoranjan Kalia said the membership drive was put on hold due to panchayat polls and byelections in Punjab.
“We have decided to resume the drive on large scale and the workers have been directed to spearhead the membership campaign before the announcement of the elections,” he said.
He added that the party’s Punjab unit had set a target of enrolling 30 lakh members.
In the previous membership drive held in 2021, the party had enrolled over 24 lakh as primary members in the state.
