The State executive of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which is being held on Friday in Bengaluru, is set to put the party’s road map for election preparations into action.
The BJP will take a formal plunge into poll preparations by lining up a series of events soon after the State executive in which over 500 prominent leaders, including the party’s legislators, MPs, and State office-bearers, will participate. The next executive will be held only in January, when hardly three months will be left for the Assembly ellections.
A team of party leaders, led by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and party parliamentary board member B.S. Yediyurappa, is set to embark on a State tour from October 11 as part of the party’s election preparations. Two other teams, led by party national general secretary and State in charge Arun Singh and State president Nalin Kumar Kateel, have already commenced their tours.
Public outreach
The tour by all three teams will continue till December-end, according to BJP State vice-president Nirmal Kumar Surana. During their tour, the teams will address public gatherings, and organise meetings with beneficiaries of various government schemes as well as different communities besides interacting with the party’s local office-bearers, he told reporters in Bengaluru.
While the teams led by Mr. Bommai and Mr. Kateel would tour 50 Assembly constituencies each, the one led by Mr. Singh would cover 40 constituencies, he explained.
Meanwhile, Mr. Singh, who arrived in Bengaluru on Thursday, told media persons that the executive would discuss a road map for achieving the party’s target of winning 150 of the total 224 Assembly seats in Karnataka.
Seeking to downplay the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, which is passing through the State now, Mr. Singh said the Congress was taking out the yatra only to level allegations of corruption against the BJP. “But whatever it does, the Congress is bound to bite the dust in the 2023 Assembly polls,” he said.
Replying to queries on RSS national general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale expressing concern over raising unemployment and economic disparities in the country, Mr. Singh only said that jobs were being created continuously by the Narendra Modi-led government and the country was on a fast pace of development.
Cabinet expansion
Meanwhile, sources in the party said the second phase of appointments to boards and corporations was expected to be initiated in about a week from now. They also indicated that the party is keen to take up ministerial expansion too, but is yet to decide when.
