With one year to go for the 2019 elections, it is safe to say that the BJP is already in campaign mode. Starting from PM Modi’s interaction in London to the entire Karnataka campaign, the BJP is slowly gearing up.
The first official initiative related to the campaign was launched by BJP President Amit Shah. This will be carried out without much fanfare and mostly behind closed doors but will lay the solid groundwork to turn the tide in the party’s favour. On Tuesday, Amit Shah himself began the outreach drive by meeting a former army chief General (retired) Dalbir Singh Suhag and former Lok Sabha Secretary General and constitutional expert Subash Kashyap. The surgical strikes were carried out under Dalbir Singh Suhag’s watch. Amit Shah said he briefed both the two eminent personalities about the historic decisions taken by the Modi government.
As usual Amit Shah is leading from the front. The tagline of this campaign is Sampark for Samarthan (reach-out for support). The campaign is launched on the fourth anniversary of the Modi government ahead of 2019 General elections. Amit Shah stated that, “During this campaign, we will inform people about the achievements of the government and work to be undertaken in the fifth year of the government. We will explain to them the measures taken by the government to uplift the poor.”
The BJP has selected 100,000 eminent Indians from all walks of life who are influencers and whose point of view matters. Now they are going to deploy 4,000 of their leaders to reach out to 25 people each from the list, sit with them, and explain to them the government’s work of the last 4 years in detail. The 4,000 leaders start right from party president Amit Shah to ministers to MPs, MLAs and leaders on the ground. They will meet the influencers, present their work and assuage their doubts.
This program is likely to get over by the third week of June. Before the BJP begins its 2019 campaign, some of the top influencers of the country would firmly be behind the BJP for the rest of the campaign, helping the party a lot. One senior BJP office-bearer said, “A union minister or BJP chief and office bearers or even an MP meeting an eminent person has an impact and the word about achievements and initiatives taken by the Modi government spreads to a wider section of people. Such people are opinion makers in their own right. This is not an exercise to get feedback from the people or an evaluation program.”
PM Modi’s rally in UP’s Baghpat and his interaction with Ujjwala beneficiaries is a warm-up for the campaign of 2019 General elections. This is a unique kind of Mass outreach program. On Tuesday, PM Modi also interacted with the beneficiaries of the Mudra Yojana Scheme. He is carrying out his soft campaign in his own way. On 26 May, PM Modi launched a survey on his NaMo App and asked people to rate the performance of BJP government. PM Modi tweeted, “It is your voice that counts! Tell me what you feel about the working of the central government, its initiatives and the development work in your constituency. Take part in this survey on the NaMo app.”
It is your voice that counts! Tell me what you feel about the working of the Central Government, its initiatives and the development work in your constituency. Take part in this survey on the NaMo App. https://t.co/KZwMJDTlfP pic.twitter.com/50aHCSAfMa
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 26, 2018
While the BJP is in full gear, the wannabe PM from the Congress is out of the country and other PM aspirants are fighting among themselves. In all this, BJP is silently carrying out their campaign and preparing their road to victory.