With an eye on crossing 303 seats and 37.36 per cent vote share that it garnered in the previous Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has set out on an ambitious outreach mission aimed at surpassing its 2019 mandate, with the inauguration of the Ram Temple at the centre of it.
Scheduled for January 22, the Ram Temple consecration ceremony will come as a huge boost to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi just months ahead of polls. The BJP’s strategy for the Lok Sabha elections will revolve around PM Modi whom the party now seeks to project as the “symbol of Hindutva, development and India’s global image”.
On Tuesday, the BJP leadership held a series of meetings to discuss its Lok Sabha elections strategy and also set the ball rolling on a micro-level plan for its campaign on the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
A high-level panel comprising senior Union ministers Bhupender Yadav, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ashwini Vaishnaw and Mansukh Mandaviya, general secretaries Sunil Bansal, Vinod Tawde and Tarun Chugh and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma met on Tuesday. The panel decided to set up sub-committees to manage the BJP’s outreach programmes ahead of polls. Narratives and strategies to consolidate BJP’s vote base and build on it were also discussed at the meeting.
In a separate meeting chaired by BJP president JP Nadda, a group of leaders from all states were given a briefing on how the party plans to take forward its Ram Temple campaign following the consecration ceremony on January 22. An elaborate 14-day calendar has been prepared by the party that will see party members engage in cleaning local temples in their respective areas between January 14 and 27.
The state-level leaders were told that they would need to set up smaller teams and responsibilities would need to be assigned to them for different tasks. On the day of the consecration ceremony, BJP workers have been asked to ensure that every household lights up five diyas or “Ram Jyotis” in the evening to mark the day as one of celebration akin to Diwali.
In Ayodhya, BJP workers have been asked to assist the deluge of devotees who will pour into the holy town to visit the Ram Temple. As many as 50,000 devotees are expected to visit the Ram Temple daily during the first week of its opening.
