The Bharatiya Janata Party will meet on Thursday morning at the residence of its national president JP Nadda to prepare ahead of its central election committee meeting. The meeting at Nadda’s place will include core group leaders like union home minister Amit Shah, Haryana election incharge Dharmendra Pradhan, co-incharge Surendra Nagar, state incharge Biplab Deb, and chief minister Nayab Singh Saini, as well as other state leaders.
CNN-News18 has exclusively learnt of the strategy of the party, which is aiming to form a government in the state for the third consecutive time, despite massive anti-incumbency sentiments.
The party will be making aggressive changes in its candidate list, keeping in mind winnability. “Our sole focus will be to ensure that we look at each candidate, keeping in mind the dynamics of the seats concerned and keep the ability of the candidate to win that seat in mind,” a top source aware of the developments said.
Haryana will have polling in a single phase on October 1. The votes will be counted on October 4.
The buzz is that 40% of the ministers in the Haryana government could be dropped for the polls. Ex-minister Sandeep Singh, who has been embroiled in a controversy involving charges of sexual misconduct, is certain to miss out.
The party is also very keen on providing a platform to a number of women candidates, especially ones who have a great chance of winning. Some of the candidates who lost the recent April-June Lok Sabha elections and those who did not get a ticket in those polls, such as Sunita Duggal, are also likely to be fielded.
A lot of factors could go against the ruling party: anti-incumbency, anti-Jat sentiments, farmer agitation, and the angst of wrestlers. The saffron party’s top brass is well aware of these issues, said a source. “The strategy of the assembly elections will be entirely different from what we have seen in the past and the election will be fought entirely on local issues. In fact, the seats and dynamics could clearly decide the strategy in every section of the state,” a source said.
By portraying Manohar Lal Khattar as a non-Jat chief minister a decade ago, the BJP wanted to send a strong message in the state dominated by Jat politics. Special emphasis will continue to be made by the party to woo the Punjabi OBC and other voters in the state.
At a time when the BJP is facing strong opposition from the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress in the state, with talks of fielding wrestler Vinesh Phogat, the saffron party has also kept her cousin Babita Phogat once again in its list of possible candidates.
BJP national spokesperson Rajeev Jaitly is also likely to be considered. He is currently the adviser to the Haryana chief minister.
The party is also likely to field former MP Kuldeep Bishnoi’s son Bhavya Bishnoi from Adampur and daughter of newly elected Rajya Sabha member Kiran Choudhry’s daughter Shruti Choudhry. Rao Inderjit Singh, who is a minister in the Narendra Modi government, has been seeking a ticket for his daughter, Aditi. Looking at the dynamics of the region, the party is likely to give her an assembly seat.
When the BJP central election committee meeting takes place on Thursday evening, the saffron party is likely to approve candidates for nearly half of the 90 assembly seats in the state. The first list of candidates is expected to be announced on Friday.
In 2019, the saffron party managed to win 40 out of the state’s 90 assembly seats. To form the government, it had to stitch together a post-poll alliance with the Dushyant Chautala-led JJP. Manohar Lal Khattar continued as the chief minister of the state while Chautala was made the deputy CM. Just before the Lok Sabha polls, the alliance split and with that Khattar was removed as the CM and was asked to contest the general elections while Nayab Singh Saini replaced him. Recently, union home minister Amit Shah announced that in the upcoming assembly elections, the party will go with Saini as the CM face.
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