Gurdaspur Parliamentary Constituency: BJP, AAP in election mode; Congress, SAD busy setting house in order

Ravi Dhaliwal

Gurdaspur, February 7

With the General Election around the corner, the BJP and AAP are already off the starting blocks while the Congress and SAD are yet to wake up from their self-induced slumber.

PM likely to start campaign

Advertisement

Sources said there was a possibility that like the 2014 and 2019 elections, PM Narendra Modi may inaugurate his party’s campaign from Gurdaspur. And like it did on the previous two occasions, this will certainly boost the workers’ morale, they added.

The BJP hit the ground running by holding rallies as early as June last year. Senior leaders who addressed workers were Amit Shah, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Meenakshi Lekhi and Vijay Rupani. Leaders rose above factionalism to welcome ex-Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani as the state election in-charge. This had a two-pronged effect — politicians have stopped attacking each other in public and booth-level meetings have been put on the fast-forward mode.

Sources said there was every possibility that like the 2014 and 2019 elections, PM Narendra Modi may officially inaugurate his party’s campaign from Gurdaspur. And like it did on the previous two occasions, this will certainly boost the workers’ morale, they added. “We are looking forward to the announcement from the BJP head office,” said a local leader.

He added that, “The nitty-gritty of booth-level management is being discussed threadbare. Strategies are being discussed on how to take care of the Jat Sikh, Christian and SC vote banks. Local satraps have been asked to focus on how to obliterate the “extreme negativity” generated by Sunny Deol, particularly in the Hindi-speaking seats of Bhoa, Pathankot and Sujanpur. In 2019, Deol had got maximum votes from these three areas.”

On the other hand, national convener Arvind Kejriwal and CM Bhagwant Mann kicked off the AAP campaign by addressing a rally on December 2. Projects worth Rs 1,854 crore were announced, clearly a gambit in an election year. AAP plans to ride on the work done by the Mann government.

The Congress, by starting late, is doing an encore of the 2022 polls. Under skipper Navjot Sidhu, it failed to produce a cohesive campaign, a fall-out of starting canvassing very late, following which its seat count dropped from 78 to 18.

For the SAD, a lot depends upon how Bikram Majithia marshals the party’s resources in Majha. Be it the assembly or parliamentary elections, he is the one who is always tasked with taking his party’s bandwagon forward. Till yet, no rally or workers’ meeting have been held.