The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh has come up with a formula under which each of the 41 sitting MLAs of the party will be assigned the task of supervising the campaign in two more Assem
The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh has come up with a formula under which each of the 41 sitting MLAs of the party will be assigned the task of supervising the campaign in two more Assembly constituencies, apart from their own.
The MLAs, however, have been asked not to interfere or make recommendations for tickets in the constituencies assigned to them.
A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting chaired by BJP vice-president and the party’s UP in-charge, Om Mathur, organising secretary Sunil Bansal and state president Keshav Maurya.
BJP legislature party leader Suresh Khanna said that each BJP legislator would be henceforth required to spend 25 days a month in his constituency and five days a month in the other two constituencies.
The MLAs will be required to create awareness about the party’s programmes and policies, as wells as the achievements of the Modi government. They must energise the party cadre and ensure better coordination with the organisation.
“The legislators will be given guidelines for the campaign in which we will expose the poor governance of the Samajwadi Party and the corruption in the BSP before the people and they will have to submit a report on the last day of each month to the designated leaders regarding the progress in each constituency,” Mr Khanna said.
The BJP MLCs Yagya Dutt Sharma, Kedar Singh, Mahendra Singh and Hriday Narain Dixit will also be included in this programme.
The BJP MLAs, meanwhile, feel that this will damage their own prospects in the upcoming Assembly elections.
“Campaigning in one constituency is a full time job and with elections knocking on our doors, we will be required to work round the clock to ensure that we get re-elected,” a BJP legislator from central Uttar Pradesh said.
Another legislator from eastern UP said seeking re-election is a Herculean task because people always feel that the sitting MLA has not lived up to their expectations. “In such a situation, we even give a miss to family functions and devote the time to our constituency. Spending five days a month in another constituency and keeping track of progress there, will obviously damage our own campaign”, he said. A senior party leader in the UP BJP also supported the views of legislators and said that the idea was not pragmatic but added that the decision was taken on the directives of BJP president Amit Shah and could not be contested.
