BJP poll strategy: Focus on 45 Hindu majority seats in Punjab

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 31

Faced with a strong opposition from farmer organisations, the BJP has decided to focus on 45 Hindu majority urban seats for the upcoming state Assembly elections.

Party sources said the poll strategy had been explained to the district leadership. The state BJP leadership has asked the party workers to focus on 45 Assembly seats, where the Hindu population is in majority.

The sources said the party leadership had been working on finding the right plan for the past three months. They have identified 45 seats, which has around 60 per cent Hindu population. Out of these seats, 23 are those which the BJP used to contest as a junior alliance partner with the SAD for over two decades.

Apart from that, there are several other seats where the party used to contest during the Bharatiya Jana Sangh days. Some of these seats include Ropar, Jalalabad, Patiala (Urban), Bathinda (Urban), etc. The party has also identified seats where they have never contested but have strong organisational base like Derabassi, Kharar and Mohali, Ropar, Budhlada and Bathinda (Urban).

The party has also asked the workers to work in a camouflaged manner with NGOs and other social organizations in segments where there is a strong opposition from farmer organizations, which are against the central agricultural laws.

Shubhash Sharma, state BJP general secretary, said they would contest all 117 seats. “We are getting queries even from the purely rural seats, which is beyond our imagination,” he said.