Shaken by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s defeat in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in the just concluded Assembly poll, the state BJP unit held a closed-door meet to re-evaluate its strategy for 2019 Lok Sabha elections and suggested that attempts be made to placate the upper castes vis -a-vis the SC/ST Act.
A senior BJP leader told ‘The Pioneer’ that the parley centred around similarities in policies and schemes between these states and UP which backfired. The leaders voiced concern about the agrarian crisis and stray animal menace that played havoc in Madhya Pradesh. “We lost elections in Madhya Pradesh because of the anger of farmers due to stray animals. Despite the government having a special department, farmers were angry the way they lost crop to these animals. Similar reports were pouring in from almost all parts of UP. This is one area where the government and the party has to seriously look into before the general election,” the leader said.
Another issue which was the fulcrum of discussion was amendments made by Modi government to the SC/ST Act. The leaders opined that in Rajasthan and MP, upper caste people were angry the way Modi government appeased Dalits. “The same anger is simmering in UP. We have reports how the upper caste, particularly Thakurs and Brahmins, came out openly against the Modi government’s decision. We need to look into this too,” he said.
The leaders decided that more interactions with villagers at ground level were needed. The party workers, selflessly carrying forward the message down to the people, should be awarded. “There are reports that the work of party worker was not being done at the government level. The party brass will speak to the government regarding this,” he said.
The state BJP unit, however, derived confidence from the fact that in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP got around 60,000 votes more than the Congress while in Rajasthan, the party got 1.17 lakh votes less than the Congress but NOTA votes were around 4 lakh. “In fact, NOTA proved the nemesis for the BJP in these states,” the BJP leader said.
