The Hindu (Hyderabad)

BJP to intensify election campaign after nomination­s

- V. Geetanath

There will no separate manifesto or special assurances for Telangana from BJP during this Parliament election and the party expects the just released national manifesto or ‘Sankalp Patra’ to resonate with respective State units and asked to propagate it day in and day out till the polling day.

It has been nearly a month since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took out a roadshow at Malkajgiri, the largest Parliament­ary constituen­cy in the country, along with State BJP president G. Kishan Reddy and contesting candidate, former Minister Eatala Rajender. Ever since, there has been a kind of lull with the selected candidates busy campaignin­g on their own.

Party sources say that the next big public meetings will be held only after the †rst two phases of polling is completed by the month-end. Nomination­s for Telangana will also be completed by then leaving about a fortnight or so for an intensive campaign.

“A clear picture on the campaign by Mr. Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and others will emerge after April 25 only. In the meantime, our people contact programmes will continue explaining the Centre’s developmen­t and

Party expects the just released national manifesto or ‘Sankalp Patra’ to resonate with the respective State units

welfare schemes as well as the Congress government’s failure to implement ‘guarantees’ within 100 days,” they said.

The sa’ron party has been quick o’ the blocks in choosing party candidates for the 17 parliament­ary constituen­cies with 14 among them being either “newcomers” or “turncoats” including nine from the BRS, a party which had lost the Assembly elections to the Congress party just four months ago.

Only solace is Congress being denied a bigger majority though the BJP may have lost out in the numbers it wanted. Whether any post-mortem was done for the Assembly elections is not known but interestin­gly, no big leader has been made election or campaign incharge like the roles played by former Union Minister Prakash Javadekar and former BRS Minister Eatala Rajender.

Rajya Sabha MP K. Laxman has been heading the election committee sans any fanfare and hitherto unknown Karnataka MLA Abhay Patil has been made election in-charge. The regular ™ight of leaders like general secretarie­s Tarun Chugh, Sunil Bansal and others to the State ošce has drasticall­y come down of late. Fact is, the party candidates seem to be totally dependent on the Modi charisma and pull.

Selecting mostly turncoats ignoring time tested veterans has also been leading to coordinati­on issues between the cadre and the leadership. That makes the party’s plan to double its number to eight this time quite a task.

 ?? G RAMAKRISHN­A ?? It has been nearly a month since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took out a roadshow at Malkajgiri.
G RAMAKRISHN­A It has been nearly a month since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took out a roadshow at Malkajgiri.

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