The Bharatiya Janata Party’s key target has now boiled down to polling more than 40% votes as the party has realised that only reaching this mark can help it meet the ambitious goal of winning close to 150 of the 224 Assembly seats in Karnataka.
This is a tough task since it means retaining the voters who supported it during the 2014 Parliamentary elections, when the party won 17 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats, said top leaders. This target is a must to even to cross 130 seats. It is to this end that the party is focussing on strengthening its organisation at the grassroots level through micro-management, sources said.
Though the magical figure to form the government in Karnataka is 113, the BJP top leadership has set a steep target, considering the tough challenges faced by the party in Karnataka from the governing Congress, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the group of progressive thinkers who are backing him.
The micro-management strategy comprises, among other things, booth-level activities. BJP national president Amit Shah, who held a meeting with the party’s legislators, MPs, office-bearers and election in-charge leaders in Bengaluru on Tuesday, is learnt to have focused heavily on such micro-management activities.
Mr. Shah appointed six key organisational personalities as in-charge leaders for different districts to monitor the party’s poll preparations. Each of these leaders — Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, P. Muralidhar Rao, D. Purandeswari, and B.L. Santosh — would get six districts for monitoring.
BJP trying to woo linguistic communities
The BJP has now roped in “linguistic leaders” from other southern States to woo their linguistic groups in different parts of Karnataka.
According to sources, 25 to 28 such leaders from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, and Maharashtra have arrived in the State. These people, who are part of the party’s organisations in different States, reportedly took part in party national president Amit Shah’s strategy meetings held in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
These leaders, it is learnt, would now coordinate with the State unit on forming different groups to approach their linguistic communities.
