Bharatiya Janata Party’s top leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Jagat Prakash Nadda will participate in a national executive meeting on Sunday to discuss the strategies for the upcoming Assembly elections in five states and the course correction needed, if any, in view of last week’s bypoll results for 29 Assembly and 3 Lok Sabha seats.
While Nadda will give the inaugural address, PM Modi will deliver the concluding address. The five-hour-long meeting, to be held at NDMC convention centre, will be “hybrid” in nature with those leaders present in Delhi attending the event physically, while the other office bearers, who are based in other parts of the country, attending it virtually. The meeting will be divided into two sessions. This was finalized in a meeting comprising relevant party leaders at Nadda’s residence on Thursday.
Apart from the members of the national executive (80 regular members, 50 special invitees and 179 permanent invitees), the meeting will also be attended by the Central ministers.
It was during one such meeting on 10 November 2004 that firebrand leader and former Chief Minister and Union Minister, Uma Bharti had created a furore by daring the then party face, L.K. Advani to take action against her in the presence of a large media contingent before walking out of the meet. The entire visuals were beamed alive.
“The focus will definitely be on the bypoll results and the forthcoming elections in the five states. We will also be discussing the ground report on the issue of inflation and the perception about the government regarding Covid-19 management. All other relevant issues, including the topic of the three farm laws, will be discussed”, a Union Minister told The Daily Guardian. He ruled out the possibility of the topic of “changing CMs in BJP ruled states” being taken up as “these issues are a topic of deliberation among closed groups”.
Elections are scheduled to be held in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa and Congress-ruled Punjab in February 2022.
While the media statement issued by Nadda, post the bypoll results, thanked the party workers for the BJP’s good performance in Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and for winning a seat in Telangana, it remained silent on the party’s loss in the BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh, where it lost one Lok Sabha seat and three Assembly seats; in Karnataka where the party lost a seat that comes in the CM’s home district and the defeat of the party candidates on two seats in Rajasthan.
The loss in Himachal Pradesh, the home state of Nadda, has come as a serious setback for the party.
The party, sources said, is also going to pass a resolution congratulating the government for vaccinating 100 crore people.
“There was a lot of negative press, anger among the common man regarding the situation that developed during the second wave in April-May. We believe a significant amount of that negative perception has been handled due to the speed with which the government vaccinated the people across the country,” a party functionary told this newspaper.
The last such meet was held in January 2019 at the Ram Lila Ground in Delhi.