PM Narendra Modi, who was recently in Lucknow, is expected to address Parivartan Yatra on its last day.
Highlights
- Parivartan Yatra expected to help BJP take final decision for the top job
- Surgical strikes will be one of the key issues highlighted, sources said
- The other key agenda will be to take feedback on Central policies
The BJP will build its Uttar Pradesh campaign around a "Parivartan Yatra" beginning next month, and expects to get feedback as senior leaders travel across the state, on who it should project as a chief ministerial candidate, if at all.
Sources said while a final decision on the party's face for the crucial state election will be taken by its parliamentary board of top decision makers, the yatra or "journey for change" will help identify the most popular leaders.
The Congress has fielded 78-year-old former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit for the post, while Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party is making a strong pitch for the job she has held four times before. A family feud in UP's ruling Samajwadi Party has made it unclear whether Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will be its pick for a second term.
The BJP's yatra will begin on different days next month from four different parts of the state and will be flagged off by party chief Amit Shah, union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and other senior leaders.
Between them, the four units will cover all 403 constituencies in UP in a tour of about 50 days and will converge in capital Lucknow on December 25, the birthday of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi could address a mega rally in Lucknow at the end of the yatra, sources said.
The key agenda is to take the policies and flagship schemes for farmers and the poor initiated by the Modi government at the centre to the far corners of UP. But, a member of the party's decision-making team admitted, the Indian Army's surgical strikes across the Line of Control earlier this month will find prominent mention in the party's campaign, PM Modi's warning against chest-thumping notwithstanding.
"How can the BJP not talk about the valour of the Army and the strikes, which were ordered by the NDA government," he said.
Each yatra will begin with leaders offering prayers at famous temples and every day, one senior central leader of the BJP, one UP leader and lawmakers from the constituency through which the yatra is passing, will join it. Home Minister Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj Singh has been given the task of mobilising the youth during the yatras.
The BJP had won 71 of UP's 80 parliamentary seats in 2014 and, despite losing by-elections thereafter, assesses that it has a good chance of winning Uttar Pradesh after 15 years.