Political parties are gearing up for the 16th Lok Sabha elections with the Election Commission formally announcing the schedule on Wednesday.
The main campaigners — BJP prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and the Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal — are on whirlwind tours across the country.
Regional players such as Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Lalu Prasad and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar in Bihar have hit the road with the aim of securing numbers that will make them relevant in the post-poll calculations in Delhi.
AAP’s star campaigner and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has already covered parts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. The party maintains that the Congress is out of the 2014 poll race and hence, its energies will be focused on defeating the BJP. Mr. Kejriwal has also indicated that he would take on Mr. Modi wherever he contests outside Gujarat.
Both the BJP and the Congress are giving a push to their efforts for securing pre-poll alliances. The BJP has put all its energies into its do or die effort, hoping that popular response to Mr. Modi’s rallies would translate into votes. “We are sure of a clear majority on the basis of the popular support for our campaign,” BJP president Rajnath Singh said.
Referring to opinion polls that have indicated an advantageous position for the BJP and defeat for the Congress, Information Technology and Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said similar surveys in 2004 had termed the BJP the favourites and in 2009 too, opinion polls had predicted defeat for the Congress.
Senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said nine-phase polls were “rather long.”
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh warned the BJP against whipping up media hype on its winning the polls. “In the 2004 India Shining campaign, they [the BJP] had almost distributed their portfolios. Same thing happened in 2009 too,” he said.
