by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

How to Win 144 lost LS seats

BJP completes survey of One lakh Polling booths

 

Even as the Congress is struggling to put its own house in order, the BJP's entire machinery has been in a war mode for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. It has completed the first phase of weak polling booths in 144 Lok Sabha seats it had lost in 2019 polls. Of the 1.12 lakh polling booths, the party has covered 84000 booths. Maharashtra is among those states where all booths have been covered. The remaining 38,000 booths will also be covered soon. The task was undertaken in May this year to identify these weak booths.

The first phase was aimed at preparing a database and each voter's profile. The 'Panna Pramukhs” (One page containing the names of voters) were put in place of these 1.12 lakh booths. Prime Minister Modi, desired that the party must focus on winning voters' confidence in these booths.

 This humongous task was taken along with focusing on ensuring retaining the two poll bound states- Himachal and Gujarat, in November-December. The PM had already addressed massive rallies in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat in September. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and J P Nadda and other senior leaders are regularly visiting these two poll bound states with the aim of retaining them.

Even External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar who is extremely busy in foreign affairs traveled to Gujarat to interact with the people. As part of winning these 144 Lok Sabha seats, Modi allocated a couple of Lok Sabha constituencies to all Union Ministers. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman camped at Baramati in Maharashtra to ensure the defeat of Supriya Sule (NCP) during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP's special focus will be Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Kerala and North Eastern states. Bihar has a tough task to repeat NDA's performance of winning 39 out of 40 Lok Sabha seats in a changed political scenario.