Gujarat: BJP Draws Up Plans For Assembly Polls at ‘Chintan Shivir’

The BJP’s brain-storming meet comes on the heels of a similar meeting of the Congress, which got over in Rajasthan’s Udaipur on Sunday.

New Delhi: The ‘Chintan Shivir’ of the BJP’s Gujarat unit kicked off on Sunday at a golf resort on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. According to news agency PTI, the saffron party leaders discussed the prevailing political headwinds in the state and its strategies going into the Assembly elections later this year.

The BJP, which has ruled the state for the last 27 years, will have to fend off a resurgent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has been trying to extend his national footprint since winning a landslide mandate in the Punjab Assembly elections, and the Congress as it seeks to win another five-year term at the hustings.

Among the attendees at the meet were Union Home Minister Amit Shah and a host of heavyweights, including the party’s Gujarat in-charge and Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav, joint in-charge Sudhir Gupta, BJP state chief CR Paatil and Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, said PTI.

The agency quoted party office-bearers as saying that the key takeaways of the current regime under Bhupendra Patel came up during the deliberations and there were discussions as well on various issues plaguing the state.

“The meeting will discuss plans on how to win 182 seats in the upcoming election. Plans are prepared, opinions of the leaders are taken and decisions are made. The executive body of the state BJP will meet again once the poll process begins. It will pass resolutions based on the decisions,” state BJP spokesperson Yagnesh Dave told PTI.

Seeking to take the fight to the saffron camp in a state where the BJP has been the dominant political player, the AAP has been hard-selling itself with the promise of a better governance model.

The AAP has already held roadshows in the state, attended by party chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann, setting the tone for the Assembly polls and lashing out at the BJP over a range of issues.

The BJP’s brain-storming meet comes on the heels of a similar meeting of the Congress, which got over in Rajasthan’s Udaipur on Sunday, and just days after Rahul Gandhi sounded the poll bugle in the state during a campaign event in Dahod. The Congress has set sights on 40 Assembly seats, which are dominated by tribal voters and are considered key to deciding poll outcomes in the state.