Delhi polls: BJP focuses on micromanagement, social media to take on against AAP

NEW DELHI: With the campaign for a very close electoral battle drawing near, BJP is focusing on micromanagement of booths and tapping the digital and social media to defeat AAP in the Delhi polls.

BJP General Secretary (Organisation) Ramlal held a meeting at the BJP headquarters on Wednesday to brief office-bearers on how they should aggressively bat for BJP in the media.

The ‘typo’ in the vision document calling people from the north-east as ‘immigrants’ (‘pravasi’ in Hindi document too) had earned a lot of bad press for BJP. AAP has also been able to corner BJP on several occasions through its campaign on social media and newspapers.

The party dismissed opinion polls that have more or less predicted a clear win for AAP and is now engaged in taking stock of the situation in various constituencies. Once campaigning ends on Thursday evening, Union ministers, central office-bearers and MPs involved in the campaign would share their views on the feedback from constituencies under their charge.

“We are taking steps to ensure our voters turn up at polling booths on February 7. The boothlevel committees and those heading district units are being directed to take all steps. RSS will contribute fully but will operate on its own,” a Union minister told ET.

BJP president Amit Shah and Ramlal have been in touch with the Panna Pramukhs and boothlevel workers. “The Panna Pramukhs and booth level incharges have met the voters in their area thrice already. They have been asked to be proactive on February 7 to ensure a high voter turnout. If the percentage of voting is low, then BJP is likely to fare badly,” a central BJP leader said.

Infighting among state leaders has not ended, though Shah, Ramlal and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley have tried to resolve the disputes. The performance of BJP’s CM candidate Kiran Bedi has not come up to the expectations of the party brass.