Saffron party sets sights on CM’s home turf

Tirupati: The Saffron party is making determined efforts to expand its base in the border district Chittoor which is also the home turf of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. Accordingly, the party last year had focussed on setting up committees covering all the mandals and constituencies in the district and this year since April, it is making all out efforts to set up `booth level committees’ covering all the 3,613 booths in the district to strengthen the party from grass-root level. Apparently, this was with an aim to bargain for a better deal with TDP if not fighting alone for the seats in the 2019 general elections.

Highlights:

• Having completed formation of constituency-level and mandal-level committees, the BJP is now focusing on setting up booth-level committees in Chittoor district
• Out of 3,613 booths, committees have so far been formed for 1600 booths
• Plans to set up committees for another 700 booths before BJP national president Amit Shah’s meeting in Vijayawada on May 25

The party having its district headquarters in Tirupati, wants to make its presence high at the pilgrim city where it had won the Lok Sabha seat in 1999 and lost it narrowly in 2014.Party senior leaders observed that in many constituencies like Tirupati, Puttur, Srikalahasti, Tamballapalle, Madanapalle and Palamaneru, they have good base, and these constituencies decide the outcome of the election.

Against this backdrop, party’s state general secretary J S Sham Kishore is regularly camping in the district and monitoring the formation of booth-level committees while state and national leaders including ministers are also touring the district to hold meetings and motivate the cadres.

A few days back, health minister Kamineni Srinivas held an intense meeting with activists from all over the district here and urged them to speed up completion of booth committees. Out of 3,613 booths, 1600 booth committees have already been formed.

Speaking to The Hans India, BJP district president B Chandra Reddy said the party is working overtime to complete the task quickly before the meeting of national president Amit Shah who is slated to address booth level committee heads in Vijayawada on May 25. The ultimate aim was to propagate party’s pro-poor initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and see the benefits of his welfare schemes reach all the eligible people to strengthen the party from village level.

Each committee comprises 10 members divided into batches covering about 1,000 voters from 200-250 houses under each booth, he explained. The party strongly feels that all these schemes are not going into the public. So to bridge this gap, booth committees have to play an important role, said Chandra Reddy. Informing that the party is having 3,21,622 members in the district, he said, “if we effectively propagate the good deeds of Centre which is implementing a lot of schemes for the welfare of the poor and downtrodden, it would double BJP membership.”

But, the party has not got the credit fully for want of propaganda, he said adding that the booth committees’ task is to promote these schemes and create awareness among the people in favour of Narendra Modi leadership on which the party in the state is heavily banking for success. When asked, is it to make its coalition partner TDP oblige more seats, he quipped why not it is for contesting all seats, hinting that the party cadre is no more in a position to play second fiddle.

However, to achieve their goal, the party district unit faces a Herculean task ahead. To show their strength in the CM's home district, the high profile leaders of the party in the district like former national executive member K Shanta Reddy, National Kisan Morcha spokesperson Challapalli Narasimha Reddy and state BJP spokesperson and former trust board member of TTD G Bhanu Prakash Reddy have to work in unison and go ahead with one voice which will be a million dollar question.

By V Pradeep Kumar