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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  BJP moves to improve coordination between govt, party
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BJP moves to improve coordination between govt, party

The party,which did well in the recent Lok Sabha election, looks to make further gains in assembly elections in states such Haryana, Delhi, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir.

The venue for the exercise was the BJP office at central Delhi’s Ashoka Road, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers met with senior BJP officials. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/MintPremium
The venue for the exercise was the BJP office at central Delhi’s Ashoka Road, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers met with senior BJP officials. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

New Delhi: Over a month after it came to power at the Centre, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday initiated an exercise to build better coordination between the government and the party, reviving a BJP practice.

The venue for the exercise was the BJP office at central Delhi’s Ashoka Road, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers met with senior BJP officials, as well as party officials from Haryana, Delhi, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, and Jharkhand.

The meeting was followed by a dinner.

The party, which did well in the recent Lok Sabha election in all these states, is now looking to make further gains in assembly elections due by the end of this year.

“The BJP has decided that each minister will come to the party office at least once in a month and listen to workers and public," said information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar, who was present at the dinner meeting.

“The dinner has been organized by BJP president Rajnath Singh and this is the first time that the entire council of ministers will visit the BJP office after the elections," said party spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain before the event.

The dinner was supposed to have taken place earlier but had to be postponed, he added.

Among important party-related topics that the invitees were expected to have discussed was the looming task of selecting a new president of the ruling party, along with all its top office-bearers.

Among leading contenders for the post are Amit Shah, a close Modi aide in charge of the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit, and J.P. Nadda, general secretary of the party.

A BJP leader aware of the developments said it is possible that the party president may be named before the start of Parliament’s budget session. “The entire government machinery is busy preparing the Union budget. There is a view in the party that if the decision to choose the new BJP president is delayed till August, BJP members will face difficulty in preparations for assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

The Parliament’s budget session runs from 7 July to 14 August.

The party, he said, needs a full-time president to prepare for the assembly elections, which will necessitate having to deal with alliance partners such as the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and Haryana Janhit Congress in that state.

On 3 July, current party president and home minister Rajnath Singh will meet more than 200 defeated Lok Sabha candidates at the party office to discuss the reasons for their loss. The BJP won 282 seats in the election, securing a majority in the Lok Sabha.

“Normally, the trend is that only people who win elections are invited by the party; this time, even those who lost the election are called to discuss what were the causes that led to the defeat of the party in those constituencies," Hussain added.

Political analysts point out that Modi, by seeking to create a synergy between the government and the party, is trying to revive an old practice of the BJP. “During the earlier BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government also these practices were followed and the party used to be closely involved with the government. The invitation to contestants who lost the Lok Sabha elections is a good gesture because it will give the losing contestants confidence that the party has not forgotten them," said Parakala Prabhakar, a Hyderabad-based political analyst.

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Published: 02 Jul 2014, 11:36 PM IST
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