Amid negative feedback on the party’s prospects in the Delhi assembly election, the BJP has shifted to fire-fighting mode by recalibrating its strategy.

Amid negative feedback on the party’s prospects in the Delhi assembly election, the BJP has shifted to fire-fighting mode by recalibrating its strategy.

With only eight days to go for polling, the party has resorted to football-type man-to-man marking of leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party. According to party sources, each AAP candidate will be confronted with a battery of top leaders. This tactic will be vigorously implemented in constituencies dominated by Purvanchalis, Jats and Muslims, where the party is vulnerable.

The BJP has already pushed top ministers like Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, etc into the campaigning. “With hardly a few weeks to go for the Union Budget, roping in Arun Jaitley for the Delhi poll shows the panic within the BJP,” said Yogendra Yadav, senior member and chief spokesperson of the AAP.

According to sources in the BJP’s central leadership, party president Amit Shah was “quite unhappy” with the feedback he received from the field, based on a survey done by the RSS and ABVP cadre. “The report given to Shah revealed holes in the state BJP functioning. Forget senior leaders, even party workers hardly visited the field. On the contrary, AAP’s volunteers have made their penetration up to the booth level,” a BJP source told Firstpost.

The factors that led to the recalibration of strategy are: trust deficit, infighting within Delhi BJP, poor homework done by state leaders, AAP getting stronger and more popular, the failure of state BJP leaders to create an impact among voters and hardly any penetration among slum-dwellers and resettlement colonies.

“The BJP is clearly in panic and is unable to match the immense groundwork done by AAP amongst the common man in Delhi. That’s why the BJP has been forced to launch the huge force of its A-leaders against a single Arvind Kejriwal,” senior member of AAP, Radhakrishnan TR Aiyyer said.

So what does this renewed strategy entail?

After bringing in Kiran Bedi into the party and announcing her as the CM nominee, the central leadership has re-jigged its campaign strategy from publicity to managing the cadre till the last man at the booth level.

However, according to a BJP insider, it had been decided, even before the induction of Kiran Bedi, to bring in nearly 3000 BJP members ranging from Union ministers to councilors during the last phase of the Delhi election run-up. What is new, is that Union ministers will be put in charge of districts, besides a few other measures.

The BJP has some important leaders from other states with proven credentials in poll management. “Madhya Pradesh minister Kailash Vijayvargiya was in-charge of the Haryana election, which the BJP won. So, he has been roped in for Delhi election too,” a BJP leader said.

Here are the other elements of the strategy:

· Blitzkrieg publicity and campaigning through 150 rallies.

· PM Narendra Modi as the central figure, with Kiran Bedi by his side to be projected in all advertisements, poll campaigns and announcements.

· The launch of a new Vision Document for Delhi.

· An army of 20 ministers, 120 Members of Parliament roped in to counter AAP.

· Finance and I&B Minister Arun Jaitley will play a key role as the driver of the BJP’s election engine.

· Union ministers have been given charge of a district. Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is in charge of New Delhi district.

· RSS cadre deployed and each member will take care of an Assembly seat.

· Prominent speakers and orators in the BJP, including chief ministers and ministers from other states will hold rallies and public meetings, like Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan or Navjot Singh Sidhu. Some of the prominent BJP leaders from other states have been given the charge of more than one Assembly seat to look after.

· Like, in football and hockey matches – there will be man-to-man marking of contesting candidates from opposite camps (AAP and Congress).

· Besides, BJP cadre, major emphasis is on RSS and ABVP cadre to counter AAP’s volunteers on field.

“This time the election is going to be a tough contest between the BJP and the AAP. Though the BJP has brought in Kiran Bedi and presented her as its CM nominee, she is unable to project herself as strongly as Arvind Kejriwal in the public or in the media.

The new modus operandi of the BJP to counter its opponents will definitely bring change, but only time can tell how effective it is,” political analyst Naveen Kumar said.