BJP’s mega outreach plan for marginalised

The BJP will hold about 200 conferences to reach out to backward communities in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh as part of the party’s push to woo the state’s electorate of marginalised people.

The meetings will touch every nook and cranny, and the dates will be announced shortly. But the entire exercise has to be completed by November.

“Each such conference will cover two assembly constituencies,” a BJP functionary told HT.

UP has 403 constituencies with nearly 240 of them having significant population of backward communities who can decide the poll outcome. Jats, who dominate western UP, also enjoy backward status. Backward communities — Yadav being the most prominent — constitute about 40% of the electorate and had voted for the BJP, overwhelmingly, in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP had resorted to similar outreach programme for the OBC during the Lok Sabha elections, projecting Narendra Modi as the son of a backward. About 33 BJP MPs, out of 71 from UP, are from these communities.

The BJP is banking on their support again, expecting that with two major upper caste groups — Brahmin and Thakur — it will achieve a majority in the assembly.

“Yadavs will still vote for the Samajwadi Party. We are pinning our hopes on the communities classified as most backward and who identify themselves with Modi,” a BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh said. In a similar outreach, the BJP appointed Phoolpur MP Keshav Prasad Maurya as its state chief.