Jammu, Jul 08 : The resurgence of Congress party in Jammu region in the recently conducted parliamentary elections remained the top agenda of Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) core group meeting in Jammu which was chaired by its National President J.P. Nadda.
It was made clear to the leaders that in the upcoming assembly elections, if things continue to remain the same, the party’s mission to form government single handedly in this union territory will not get fulfilled.
Sources within BJP told the news agency that the agenda of core group meeting of BJP in Jammu was upcoming assembly elections and deliberations were held as to how to improve the performance during these elections.
“Besides many aspects of the assembly elections, three main issues which remain the hot topic were resurgence of Congress party in Jammu, decline in vote share during parliamentary elections and not able to convert votes of Muslim Paharais during Lok Sabha elections,” said a source.
BJP had managed to retain both the seats of Lok Sabha from Jammu region, Udhampur-Doda and Jammu-Reasi, but the winning margin was low compared to the 2019 parliamentary elections.
“The decline in vote share during the Lok Sabha elections is a matter of concern which means the BJP is losing ground to the Congress party, which is not a good sign ahead of the crucial assembly elections. The BJP core group was asked to pull up the socks and reclaim the lost ground so that it doesn’t hurt the party’s mission to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.
Moreover, it was also discussed that the party has invested heavily in the Pahari community by giving them ST status but the BJP wasn’t able to convert it in terms of votes during the elections.
“Though the Pahari population of Hindu community supported the party, Muslim Pahari votes remained out of bound. The one reason which was attributed to this was absence of BJP’s own candidate from Anantnag-Rajouri seat. The meeting discussed that in assembly elections, the mistake won’t be repeated and party will field its own candidates on all assembly seats of Rajouri and Poonch districts so that Pahari people are given a chance to reciprocate the love which they have got from BJP government at the center,” the sources added
