Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Nitin Nabin chaired a meeting of office bearers at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Sunday to discuss the BJP’s social media strategy and outreach on issues related to the upcoming assembly elections in five states, as well as the party’s counter to the Congress’s campaign against the controversial special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, people familiar with the matter said.
Union home minister Amit Shah and national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh also attended the meeting.
According to people aware of the details, the meeting discussed the party’s response to the Opposition’s November 1 rally against SIR.
“Starting October 22, the party has already initiated the Rashtra Chintan Samvaad across India to counter the INDI bloc’s fake narrative against constitutional bodies such as the election commission,” said a party functionary.
The Samvaad, overseen by senior ministers Piyush Goyal and Kiren Rijiju, and senior party leaders Sunil Bansal and Smriti Irani is an outreach programme aimed at dispelling SIR-related concerns.
“There are teams that will hold discussions with students, professionals and even homemakers to lay bare the realities of why the SIR is needed and how the Congress wants illegal immigrants to be included as voters,” said the functionary quoted above.
Since the Opposition aims to make SIR a major plank in the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Punjab, Goa and Uttarakhand, the BJP is redoubling efforts to counter the concerns about the electoral exercise.
“We will also disseminate information about the details of how SIR has been conducted over the years and the outcome of recent elections in states where SIR was conducted. It is important for people to know that the Congress is leading the other parties to question and discredit the Supreme Court, the Election Commission and several other institutions to mask their own defeat,” said the functionary quoted above.