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Updated: Jul 21, 2019 00:18 IST

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has set for itself a target of winning more than three-fourths of the assembly seats in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand that go to polls later this year, three persons involved in the party’s election strategy in these states said on the condition of anonymity. The BJP rules all three states either on its own or with allies.

The BJP has prepared “Mission 75-plus” strategy for the assembly polls in Haryana, which elects 90 members to its legislative assembly, and “Mission 65-plus” for Jharkhand, where the state assembly has 81 members. Similarly, the saffron party has firmed up “Mission 220-plus” plan for the election for the 288-member Maharashtra assembly. Maharashtra and Haryana will go to polls in October and Jharkhand in December.

“The [three] state units have been assigned these targets formally during recent meetings. They have started working on them,” the first BJP functionary said. “Accordingly, the campaign strategy is being finalised and candidate selection exercise has started,” the second person said.

Each of these state units has been given a target to enrol at least 25% new members.

“We have taken up 36 different programmes, including membership drive and booth level meetings, before the model code of conduct comes into force,” the third party functionary said, explaining the strategy for Jharkhand. “There will be good number of candidates, mostly in the age group of 45-50 years.”

The BJP had won 47 out of 90 seats in Haryana, 42 of 81 in alliance with the All Jharkhand Students Union in Jharkhand and bagged 122 seats in Maharashtra in partnership with the Shiv Sena, which won 63 seats, in the 2014 assembly polls.

This year, the BJP and its allies nearly swept these three states winning 63 of their total 72 LS seats – a strike rate of 87.5%. The party led in 79 of 90 assembly segments of Haryana in parliamentary polls. It led in 57 assembly seats of Jharkhand while its ally, All Jharkhand Students Union, led in six of 81 assembly constituencies. The BJP-Sena alliance, too, swept Maharashtra taking a lead in 229 of 288 assembly seats. Of these BJP got lead in 124 seats and the Sena in 105.

“Congress, which has good presence in all the three states, could well end up giving a walkover if it doesn’t come out of its present derailed and disoriented state,” said Sidharth Mishra, president of Centre for Reforms, Development and Justice.