The Gujarat BJP on Wednesday announced the poll management committee with its eyes on Lok Sabha (LS) polls. The committee conducted its first meeting at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani’s residence on Wednesday evening. The committee comprises of party chief Jitu Vaghani, CM Vijay Rupani, deputy CM Nitin Patel and other 11 top brass state leaders. The meeting concluded with the point that the party needs to bring the flock of Hindu voters together by the next LS elections through soft Hindutva and its special focus shall remain on OBC voters.
A senior party leader, also a member of the committee, said on the condition of anonymity, “The Hindutva card is to be played before the LS polls in a soft manner and it is just to keep all the communities together, which were believed to be loyal voters of BJP once upon a time. The agitations by different communities were sponsored by Congress and they succeeded to fragmentise our loyal voters into different sections. We had to bear the loss as a result in the last Assembly polls. The poll management committee will pave way to bring all these community together through their religious leaders.”
“We will rope in religious leaders of different sects, who have great appeal over different communities like Patels, Thakors, Kolis, SCs, STs and others. They would act as BJP’s mascots to tranquil the force of these communities, which have turned their faces,” added the leader.
The committee also unanimously agreed to keep focus on the OBC vote bank, including Thakor and Koli communities. Surprise entry of Koli leader and minister, Parshottam Solanki’s younger brother Hira Solanki is the indicator that the BJP is also giving special attention to the largest chunk of voters in OBC communities in Gujarat ie Koli. Prior to this meeting, office bearers in different morchas and cells of BJP also met the top brass leaders at party office in afternoon.
The party’s national general secretary Anil Jain also attended the meeting as part of his one day visit to Gujarat. He said, “Our party chief is going to travel across India in few days for the poll preparations and will visit Gujarat in June. I was here as a part of preparations for his visit. He will visit next month.”
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