BJP focuses on reclaiming old bastions it lost to rivals

NEW DELHI: BJP will intensify its public contact in certain pockets that were its strongholds earlier but slipped into the

opposition

’s kitty in recent years.

Sources said the party has asked its booth-level workers to go from door to door to tell people about the achievements of the Narendra Modi government and its pro-poor schemes.

Dehi BJP will intensify its campaign from next week and target “weak” booths first.

Source said there at least 25 Assembly segments in the seven parliamentary constituencies where the party needs to focus more. While some segments are reserved for scheduled castes, the rest have largely Muslim, Poorvanchali and slum voters.

“After the last delimitation of assembly and parliamentary constituencies, we lost our control over several segments. The delimitation committee added slum clusters and Muslim-dominated areas in several urban pockets, which, otherwise, were BJP’s vote banks,” said a senior party leader requesting anonymity.

Krishna Nagar, Gandhi Nagar and Vishwas Nagar in East Delhi

Lok Sabha

area; Tilak Nagar, Janakpuri and Dwarka in West Delhi; Timarpur, Model Town and Sadar Bazar in Chandni Chowk parliamentary constituencies were some urban pockets, which demographically changed after delimitation. Some of these segments, which had 80-90% urban population, now has less than 40%.

“Muslims and slum dwellers have always been known to vote for Congress and now for AAP. Earlier, we used to sweep these segments but with the change in the character of the area, we either have a close run or the result goes in the opponent’s favour,” another leader said.

Delhi BJP media in-charge Pratyush Kanth said the party was aware of the challenges that have surfaced due to changing demography of Delhi. “We are trying to reach out to the last booth of Delhi and address the issues. This is, in fact, an ongoing process which has been sped up due to the upcoming elections,” Kanth said.