Nadda and Santosh set the tempo high for BJP and NDA in Bihar
During his 24-hour trip, Nadda sought to address certain cause of concerns that had developed in the alliance among the BJP, chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (U) and the Lok Janshakti Party.
by Kumar Anshuman
New Delhi: BJP national president JP Nadda’s visit to Bihar on Saturday has set the tempo high for the party and the National Democratic Alliance in the election-bound state.
Nadda focused on alliance and campaign during the trip. Meanwhile, BJP organisation general secretary BL Santosh, who has been visiting the state regularly, is working with the party units and organisation.
During his 24-hour trip, Nadda sought to address certain cause of concerns that had developed in the alliance among the BJP, chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (U) and the Lok Janshakti Party. He also met certain key constituents of the NDA’s vote bank in the state.
Nadda’s meeting with Kumar at the CM’s residence showcased the resolve of the NDA partners to work together in order to win the election. It also sent a message to LJP leader Chirag Paswan, of the equation between the BJP and the JD(U). Nadda, during the meeting with BJP leaders, made it clear that all three partners would contest the election together. LJP president Paswan, who till now was singing a different tone, too came forward to say that they were on the same pitch. The larger message was it was absolutely fine at the top leadership and small differences over seat sharing would not affect the partnership.
Nadda also launched the party’s Atmanirbhar Bihar campaign and 120 digital campaign raths. He presented a five-year roadmap of making Bihar atmanirbhar before his party workers.
The BJP chief met a group of female farmers as well as makhana producers. Women have been the core voters of Kumar and with encouraging female farmers, Nadda was directly reaching out to a large section of voters of the state. Most of the farmers engaged in Makhana production belong to most backward classes, again a community which backs Kumar.
“It was a fruitful trip of the national president and it has enthused confidence among the party workers and alliance partners,” state BJP general secretary Devesh Kumar told ET. The behind-the-scene preparations for the trip were made by Bhupender Yadav, BJP’s general secretary in-charge of Bihar.
Santosh has made frequent trips to Bihar with a focus on optimising organisational strength of different units of the party. Last week he held meetings with all eight departments of the state unit, and urged them to increase the scale of outreach of the party's work.
In next three weeks, each of the 17 BJP MPs of Bihar will reach at least 60 village panchayats. Each MP has been asked to handle the outreach programme of 300 villages to start with. Along with talking about Atmanirbhar Bihar, the meetings would also require the MPs to meet office bearers at every mandal and put in place a block-level outreach plan, a BJP functionary said.