BJP plans to spend big in LS elections
A guessing game has begun on a poll budget of BJP’s election campaign committee chief Narendra Modi in the political circles.
While a section of the Congress leaders from Gujarat is predicting that Mr Modi will spend about `10 crore in each Lok Sabha seat the BJP will fight across the country, others feel that the election budget of the saffron party would be highest this time.
According to some non-BJP leaders, the BJP will have to project him as its prime ministerial candidate for the simple reason that nobody will pump in funds like Mr Modi in the coming electoral battle. In fact, he has already started spending money for the purpose.
Mr Modi is expected to spend huge funds in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with a calculation that these states would help the BJP in increasing its numbers.
In Uttar Pradesh, all the key players — SP, BSP, Congress and the BJP — are not lagging behind in “mobilising resources” but in Bihar the picture could be different.
Mr Modi is not bothered about Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra and to some extent Jharkhand besides Punjab, where the BJP has leaders and resources.
But the saffron party has been faceless in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Assam and the northeast.
A senior leader of the BJP parliamentary party said “The BJP need not have to raise Hindutva because Narendra Modi himself has been identified with (aggressive) Hindutva. The BJP will fight the battle on development, stability and misgovernance of the UPA,” he said. According to BJP insiders, Mr Modi may not fight the Lok Sabha elections but can come to the Lower House through a by-election. However, he would ensure Mr L.K. Advani’s victory from Gandhinagar. Some Congress leaders said Union ministers Dinsha Patel, Bharatsinh Solanki and Tushar Chaudhary are on Mr Modi’s hitlist in Gujarat.
Meanwhile, BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi on Friday downplayed Mr Modi’s comment that he got the mandate to serve Gujarat till 2017, saying one should not read too much into it as Mr Modi has articulated a “tactical, legal and constitutional position”, according to a PTI report from Patna.
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