PM will go on blitzkrieg politics as BJP attempts to hold onto power in Madhya Pradesh
After using the “collective leadership” tactic to defeat anti-incumbency sentiment against the state government in Madhya Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is relying on the charisma and persuasiveness of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to energize the party’s electoral campaign and hold onto power in the state come November 17.
Party officials claim that Modi will make 14 appearances at rallies throughout the state, beginning on Saturday with a speech in Ratlam. Modi is scheduled to conduct rallies in Seoni, Khandwa, Sidhi, Morena, Damoh, Guna, Satna, Chhatarpur, Neemuch, Barwani, Betul, Shahganj, and Jhabua in the coming weeks.
The slogan “Phir Is Baar BJP Sarkar” (BJP government once again) and the party’s election theme “Modi Ke Mann Mein MP” (MP close to Modi’s heart) are intended to deflect attention from the Prime Minister and away from the “disinterest and detachment” with state leaders, according to party officials.
The party believes that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s “fatigue” factor has diminished his ability to garner votes, despite the fact that he has announced a plethora of social programmes, such as the well-liked Ladli Behna Yojana, which provides financial incentives to women. As a result, they continued, the BJP’s strategy of not running four-term chief minister Chouhan as a candidate for president and of fielding senior leaders, including Union ministers, in the state polls is anticipated to mitigate voter apathy and ire, which the party fears could harm its chances after 20 years in power, save for a 15-month lull.
In an attempt to send a message of a united leadership challenging the polls, the party has fielded four Lok Sabha MPs, Uday Pratap Singh, Riti Pathak, Ganesh Singh, and Narendra Singh Tomar, three Union ministers, and Prahlad Patel, for the assembly elections.
“The Prime Minister remains the most well-liked leader, and his recognition of that fact has not changed. According to our studies, people have good opinion of the prime minister because they believe he is a trustworthy leader who keeps his word. A party leader said, “His rallies attract large crowds, and his speech may swing the public opinion in the party’s favor.
Pre-election polls show that the BJP and the Congress will face off in a close election, hence the former has expanded the number of PM rallies from 10 in 2018 to 14 this year. The party only won 109 of the 230 seats in the 2018 election, but the leader said that the reaction to Modi’s rallies in the areas he visited was encouraging. He said, “We won six of the ten constituencies where he spoke to the crowds.” These included the Vidisha, Mandsaur, Chhatarpur, and Gwalior constituencies.
The BJP is hoping that the performance of the Union government, particularly through the implementation of various social schemes and cash incentives for farmers and women, will tip the scales in its favor, party functionaries said, with the Congress promising subsidies, attacking the state government over issues like inflation and job cuts, and wooing the OBC vote bank by hammering home the need for a caste-based enumeration and revisiting the quotas.
