The BJP has put aside concerns over declaring ticket for the coming Assembly polls in five States in the inauspicious “khar maas” period and scheduled meeting of its Central Election Committee (CEC) for January 11. The inauspicious period is supposed to end on January 14 with Makar Sankranti.
“Seats for Goa and Punjab will be declared on January 11 after a meeting of the CEC, while seats for Uttarakhand and the first few phases for the multiple-phase Uttar Pradesh polls will be announced after meetings on January 14 and 15,” said a senior office-bearer of the party.
The party headquarters at Delhi’s Ashoka Road is teeming with ticket hopefuls as BJP president Amit Shah remained engaged in meetings in his office.
Lessons learnt
One of the key organisational decisions taken by the party after poll debacle in Delhi and Bihar in 2015 is not to parachute non-local party workers from other States to poll going ones.
“After the national executive, BJP general secretary Ram Lalji met with organisational general secretaries from the State units, including Sunil Bansal from U.P. and the Rajasthan unit chief Ashok Parnami, as well as V. Satish who also looks after organisational matters. It was decided that only those non-local workers who have already been working in areas going to polls for the last few months will be allowed to carry out their work further. In the Delhi and Bihar polls, there had been a lot of friction between local and non-local party workers and that had contributed, in a way, to the defeat,” said a senior source in the party.
“We have almost tied up all organisational issues and deployment and are enthused about the coming elections,” added the source.
