Elections: BJP appoints incharges for poll-bound states

While the Congress is still struggling to find a semblance of unity amid divisions and desertions plaguing it in poll-bound states, the BJP has made the first big move toward the preparation for assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Delhi.

It has appointed key leaders as election in-charges of the poll-bound states.

Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Narendra Singh Tomar have been appointed as general secretary in-charges of Delhi and Haryana, respectively.

Party’s powerful general secretary Bhupendra Yadav, considered close to BJP chief and Home Minister Amit Shah, has taken charge of Maharashtra, the state where the BJP has an alliance with the frequent-muscle-flexing ally, the Shiv Sena.

An out and out organisation man Om Mathur, BJP’s vice president, who was appointed Gujarat BJP in-charge for the Lok Sabha polls, has now been made the in-charge for Assembly polls in the tribal state of Jharkhand, which was bifurcated from Bihar in 2000 has been ruled mostly by the BJP since.

Barring Delhi, where Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party is in power, the saffron party rules the other three states, which go to polls this year-end.

Elections in Delhi are due early next year.

Winning Delhi is a key challenge for the BJP where it could win only 3 out of the 70 Assembly seats in the last election.

It has been out of power in Delhi since 1998 when Congress’ Sheila Dikshit became the chief minister and continued for three terms till the party lost to the AAP in 2013.

In all the three states— Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand— the BJP has gone beyond the traditional politics and has experimented with social engineering, having brought a non-Maratha chief minister (Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra), non-Jaat chief minister (Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana) and a non-tribal chief minister (Raghubar Das in Jharkhand), consolidating all other non-dominant communities in its favour.

Besides, the Congress and other Opposition parties in these states are a divided lot.

Its state units are also suffering from internal dissensions.

In Haryana, the camps of former chief minister Bhupinder Hooda and Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Ashok Tanwar have daggers drawn, while in Maharashtra both the Congress and its ally the NCP have seen frequent desertions of their leaders, who have joined either the BJP or the Shiv Sena.

In Maharasthra, Congress’ Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil quit the party and joined the BJP in June.

One of the prominent media faces of the Congress, Priyanka Chaturvedi had joined the Shiv Sena.

In Jharkhand, as many Congressmen were unhappy with their PCC chief Ajoy Kumar, a former Indian Police Services Officer, the leader resigned on Friday saying his efforts to improve the condition of Congress in Jharkhand were getting obstructed “due to vested interests of the handful” within the organisation for the last four years.

In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has won all ten seats in Haryana, all seven seats in Delhi, the BJP-AJSU alliance in Jharkhand won 12 of 14 seats while in Maharashtra, the BJP-Shiv Sena combine won 41 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats.