New Delhi, Sep 3 (PTI) The Opposition’s campaign against SIR in Bihar and the NDA’s counter-offensive on the issue of abuse aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother figured in a meeting of state BJP leaders with the party’s top brass, including Home Minister Amit Shah, on Wednesday as they deliberated over the roadmap for the assembly polls.
Sources said the strategy session was confined to taking stock of the political situation and chalking out campaign programmes.
Bihar BJP president Dilip Kumar Jaiswal said that seat-sharing arrangement with allies did not figure in the discussion as it is a call to be taken by the central leadership.
He added that the election campaign committee will soon be announced and extensive measures will be put in place for the selection of candidates.
It was decided, he said, to hold joint meetings of Bihar NDA workers in every assembly constituency by September 25.
BJP president J P Nadda and key state leaders, including Jaiswal, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha and Union ministers Giriraj Singh and Nityanand Rai, besides national general secretary Vinod Tawde, who is in charge of Bihar, and co-incharge Deepak Prakash, were part of the deliberations.
The sources said 11 of the 12 core group leaders from the party’s Bihar unit attended the meeting. Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who is also the state’s finance minister, did not attend as he was busy with the GST Council meeting.
The sources said the view among several party leaders is that the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi-led campaign against the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state is unlikely to have any popular traction outside the support base of the opposition, as the Election Commission’s exercise has not negatively affected the larger population.
It may even backfire for the opposition as their campaign has pushed local issues related to governance and leadership out of the limelight, a leader said.
The abuse aimed at Modi’s mother from the opposition’s dais during its “Voter Adhikar Yatra” and the absence of any condemnation from the INDIA bloc leaders have helped the ruling alliance in turning the heat on their rivals, he added.
The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has called for a state-wide bandh on Thursday as it looks to step up its counter-offensive against the rivals following Modi’s sharp attack on the RJD-Congress-Left alliance over the issue.
Modi is likely to visit the state a couple of times in the coming weeks.
The ongoing meetings of NDA leaders across the state, coupled with the BJP’s “Sewa Pakhwada” which the party will observe from Modi’s birthday on September 17 to October 2, also came up in the discussion.
A host of welfare measures announced by the state government led by JD(U) president and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar have also boosted the NDA, they added.
Election to the 243-member state assembly is likely to be held in November.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
