Modi to touch 20 states in party’s 100-day poll blitz

‘MISSION 123’ BJP to focus on seats it contested but lost in 2014

NEWDELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will attempt to recover from its recent electoral defeats in three Hindi heartland states with a focused strategy to win new territories and forge fresh alliances, centered around a public speaking spree by Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the next 100 days, according to senior functionaries familiar with the matter.

The party has also revived ‘Mission 123’ — winning as many as possible the 123 seats that the BJP contested but did not win in the Modi wave that took it to an unprecedented 282 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The party had last year categorised these 123 constituencies into 25 clusters, with one leader given charge of each of the clusters.

Functionaries said that, over the next 100 days, Modi will tour nearly 20 states to “activate” BJP workers and seek support from voters in these 25 clusters. Among them, states such as West Bengal, Assam and Odisha — together they account for 77 Lok Sabha seats, of which the BJP holds just 10 — will be the key focus areas.

“PM Modi remains the most

popular leader and continues to be the only candidate who can provide a stable government. We will capitalise on this,” said a BJP general secretary who asked not to be named.

Most of Modi’s appearances will be government programmes or public interactions. Evidence of the renewed focus on key ‘Mission 123’ regions surfaced over the past week. On December 24, the Prime Minister was in Odisha to inaugurate a new Indian Institute of Technology campus in Bhubaneswar, and then spoke at a rally in Khurda. His next stop was Assam on December 25 to inaugurate India’s longest rail-cumroad bridge over the Bramhaputra river. On January 4, the PM will return to Silchar in Assam, where the BJP has set a target of winning 11 out of 14 Lok Sabha seats — four more than its existing ally.

Modi will be back in Odisha on January 5 to speak at a rally in Mayurbhanj, and is likely to return to the state for another meeting on January 15.