BJP mulls strict screening for new entrants and 'turncoats' ahead of Lok Sabha Elections 2024

The party is planning to conduct strict screenings to induct new candidates for which screening committees will be formed, which shall assess a candidate's or a turncoat's background and past performance, including their political lineage and potential.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party is gearing up efforts to welcome new faces into the saffron brigade, and these new entrants will include deserters (defectors) from the opposition party as well.

The party is now planning to conduct strict screenings to induct such new candidates for which screening committees will be formed.

The screening committees will be responsible to assess a candidate's or a turncoat's background and past performance based on certain parameters, including their political lineage and potential.

The saffron brigade's attention will focus on a candidate's grip on their constituency or the kind of influence they have had on certain caste groups.

For instance, sources from the Narendra Modi-led party speculate members of the Eknath Shinde-led Sena faction in Maharashtra are likely to contest the Lok Sabha polls on a BJP ticket. Since the BJP has set a target of winning more than 303 seats that it won in the 2019 general election, the screening committees will also prepare to induct new candidates without a political background.

To monitor the process at the Central level, the BJP had also set up another committee earlier in January. Anurag Thakur and Bhupender Yadav along with Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and BJP’s organisational general secretary BL Santhosh are part of this committee.

The assessment during the screening process will also help BJP understand the factors that might have negatively impacted a tunrcoat's performance. For example, in Karnataka, the eight Congress turncoats who joined the BJP in 2019 and helped the party form a government, lost in the May 10 assembly elections. The saffron brigade aims to leave no stones unturned when it is inducting members of opposition parties to avoid such scenarios.

“While the party has an open-door policy for people who want to formally associate with the BJP, it expects them to follow the party’s ideology, ethics and code of discipline,” Hindustan Times quoted a BJP leader who wished to be unnamed.

“Over a dozen Congress leaders who were also ministers have joined the BJP. At least three former Congress chief ministers joined the party, SM Krishna, Krishna Kumar Reddy and Amarinder Singh,” said another BJP leader as he referred to the past defectors who joined the saffron brigade.