BJP holds five meetings with its Punjab unit to discuss poll preparedness
Darpan News Desk IANS, 14 Oct, 2021 10:57 AM
New Delhi, Oct 14 (IANS) Gearing up for the Punjab assembly polls, the BJP central leadership has held five meetings with the state unit in the national capital. In the coming days, central leaders including the election in-charge and co-incharges will start visiting the state where polls will be held early next year.
A senior party functionary said that the fact that the BJP has never been in power in Punjab on its own, this time the party is leaving no stone unturned and the central leadership is regularly reviewing the poll preparedness of the state unit.
"In the run up to the assembly polls scheduled early next year, the BJP Punjab unit has launched several campaigns to strengthen its organizational structure at the ground level and the progress of these campaigns was also discussed in these meetings," he said.
It is learnt that the top leadership of the BJP Punjab unit was present during these five meetings. "We have had five meetings in New Delhi with the state leadership. We reviewed preparedness and the work done under several programmes. Future plans were also discussed. We are contesting to win and working according to our plans. Everyone in the Punjab unit has worked hard for the expansion of the party across the state in the last one year and it will be visible in next year's assembly polls," BJP national general secretary and Punjab in-charge Dushyant Gautam said.
It is also learnt that the BJP's election in-charge for Punjab, Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and co-incharges Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Meenakshi Lekhi and Lok Sabha member Vinod Chavda will make their first visit to the state soon.
Gautam said that the election in-charges and co-incharges were supposed to visit the state earlier but had been delayed due to the death of Union minister Shekhawat's mother. "Election in-charge and co-incharges will be visiting soon to take stock of the preparations. They will also guide the Punjab unit with their experience," he added.
The BJP is contesting the assembly polls on its own in Punjab for the first time after one of its oldest allies Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) walked away from the alliance last year over the new farm laws. In the last Punjab assembly polls in 2017, the BJP had won only three out of the 23 seats it contested.
She reached Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, by air in the morning from where she headed straight to her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's cottage located amid forests of pine and cedar on the suburbs of the Himachal Pradesh capital.
Channi took oath of office along with his two deputies -- one a Jat Sikh and another belonging to the Hindu community -- at a simple ceremony here in the Punjab capital that was delayed for 20 minutes owing to the late arrival of party leader Rahul Gandhi.
Jasbir Singh Virk, president of Bhartiya Sikh Sangthan, has underlined the need to intensify the ongoing farmers' agitation and said that there was a need to shore up strength at the Delhi borders.
Punjab BJP President Ashwani Sharma told IANS that to control infighting in its party state unit, the Congress leadership made Channi ji (Charanjit Singh Channi) the Punjab Chief Minister but insulted the Dalit community by not allowing him to lead the party in the upcoming state Assembly polls.
The government and drug controller's office will have to take a decision on the third booster dose based on data and cases as times goes on and including how effective the vaccine is on the Delta virus variant, he added.
