Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a poll mantra for BJP leaders to fight anti-incumbency in the 2024 general elections at a meeting of party MPs today. He said if the party lawmakers reach out to the voters, "there will be no anti-incumbency".
"Party MPs should go to their constituencies and stay connected with the public," said PM Modi.
He was addressing the first BJP parliamentary party meeting after the Budget announcement on February 1. PM Modi said even though it was the last full-fledged Budget before the next Lok Sabha polls, "no one has the courage to term it a 'chunavi' Budget (Budget influenced by polls)".
"The poor and marginalised were the focus of the budget," he said, asking all the MPs to go to their constituencies and "talk to the people about what they have got from the Budget".
The Prime Minister had earlier also stressed the importance of outreach to the voters. At the BJP National Executive last month, he asked party leaders to gear up for the Lok Sabha elections.
"We have 400 days (until the big Lok Sabha elections) and we have to do everything to serve the people. We have to create history," senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis quoted him as saying iduring the two-day meeting.
PM Modi had also asked the BJP members to reach out to every section of society, without electoral considerations. "The BJP is no longer merely a political movement but a social movement as well that is working to transform socio-economic conditions," he told the 350-odd party members who attended the session.
In the next year's election, the BJP will seek a third straight term and hopes to override any anti-incumbent sentiment over its 10-year rule.
In December, the BJP raised the number of "difficult" Lok Sabha seats it is eyeing to win in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to 160 from 144. A big chunk of these additions came from Bihar where it is set to contest most of the constituencies on its own following its split with Nitish Kumar's JD(U).
The BJP had drawn a similar list ahead of the 2019 polls and had won a large number of them. It won 303 seats in the 543-member Parliament in 2019 against 282 in 2014.
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