BJP's working committee meets in Gwalior to set agenda for Madhya Pradesh assembly polls

The Madhya Pradesh BJP's working committee on Sunday held a meeting in Gwalior to draw its strategy for the year-end assembly polls in the state, wherein a resolution was passed urging party workers to highlight among voters the past Congress governments' 'misrule' and saffron party-led dispensations' achievements.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who spoke at the day-long meeting, set the target of winning more than 150 out of the total 230 seats in the state.

This last meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party's state working committee ahead of the year-end elections was inaugurated by Union minister Bhupender Yadav around 11 am and it continued till evening.

Around 1,700 party leaders and office-bearers, including MLAs, MPs, district presidents and general secretaries, attended the meeting.

Apart from Shah, who is the BJP's key strategist, and Yadav, the party's MP election in-charge, several other prominent leaders of the party were present on the occasion.

BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya tabled a political resolution highlighting the achievements of the governments in Madhya Pradesh and Centre, stating that 1.36 crore people in the state have come out of the poverty line between 2019 and 2021, a party functionary who attended the meeting told PTI.

Among other things, the resolution said the per capita income was on the rise in the country and the state, he said.

Union ministers Prahlad Patel, Faggan Singh Kulaste, Jyotiraditya Scindia among others spoke on it before it was passed unanimously, he added.

'The resolution asked the party cadres to expose the misrule of the Congress before 2003 in MP highlighting the bad condition of the state under Congress rule between 1993 and 2003 when Digvijaya Singh was the chief minister,' the functionary said.

The resolution underlined the need of highlighting the grim condition of roads, power cuts and shortage of water which plagued MP at that time, when it was called a 'BIMARU' (ailing) state, an acronym for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh due the shortfall in several social, health and economic parameters.

The BIMARU acronym has often been used to refer to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, to imply that these states lagged in terms of economic growth, health care, education, and other indices.

During his speech at the meeting, Shah called upon the party functionaries to embrace the slogan - 'Mera Booth Sabse Majboot' (My poll booth strongest one), and work for winning more than 150 seats out of 230 in MP.

He said the booth workers motivate people to cast their votes.

He also called upon the participants to take a pledge to wrest the lone Lok Sabha Seat from the Congress in the next year's general elections.

Shah's cabinet colleagues Narendra Singh Tomar, Ashwini Vaishnaw urged the 1,700 participants of the meeting to reach out to the public on a massive scale to tell them about welfare schemes of the BJP government and their benefits, a party office-bearer said.

They were also asked to highlight among the people the negative politics of the Congress, he added.

The BJP has been in power in the central state since 2003, except for a break between December 2018 and March 2020 when the state had a Congress government under Kamal Nath.