BJP will appoint heads for all Lok Sabha seats

RUNUP TO 2019 Party to also set up an 11member panel in each state to start preparation

NEWDELHI:THE Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will appoint an incharge for each of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies and set up an 11-member committee in every state to start preparation for the next year’s parliamentary elections, two party leaders privy to the matter said.

These incharges, or prabharis, will be from outside the Lok Sabha constituency which they will oversee, the first leader said. The 11-member panel will be called “Chunav Taiyari Toli” (election preparation group) and will look after 13 specific assignments related to the state, the second leader said.

This is for the first time that the BJP has appointed an incharge for every Lok Sabha seat — a model that the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has been following for years — and such a specific team has been deployed in each state to prepare the ground for parliamentary elections, the two leaders said.

“We are getting ready for polls,” first leader said. “The earlier we start preparing, the better the understanding we will have of our strengths and weaknesses. The party intends to win in 2019 with a margin bigger than in 2014.”

“The Modi-shah duo lay a great focus on organisational work,” the second leader said.

“The entire exercise is to finetune the organisation for the next challenge.”

BJP president Amit Shah has begun a tour of all states, starting with Chhattisgarh on June 10, and plans to visit each state by the end of July to review the preparedness of each state unit for the general election. The BJP faces a challenge in some of the states with opposition parties such as the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh and the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) coming together in Karnataka.