Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president J.P. Nadda has called a meeting of national general secretaries of the party over the weekend on June 5 and 6. This would be the first big in-person meeting by the party after the beginning of the second wave of COVID-19 infections.
The agenda of the meeting includes starting preparations for Assembly elections due in 2022, the situation arising out of COVID-19, and the party’s own work in the interregnum.
Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur will go to polls in early 2022, and Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat will have their elections later the same year. Thus, it will be a heavy calendar, and the BJP will be fighting the Congress in all these States, barring Uttar Pradesh. In all States except Punjab, the BJP will also be trying to defend its governments.
The meeting, hence, assumes significance with respect to the party’s strategies in different States. BJP national general secretary (organisation), B.L. Santhosh, recently toured Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh and tried to calm embattled State units, reeling both under factionalism and the erosion of popular support because of the handling of the COVID-19 crisis.
