BJP's national president, JP Nadda, is scheduled for a one-day visit to Jammu on Sunday. He will first visit the revered Raghunath Temple and then proceed to the BJP Office at Trikuta Nagar for discussions with the party leaders and former ministers.
The main focus of the meeting will be the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and the party's strategies concerning them. His emphasis during the meeting will be on extending the reach of Modi government schemes to a larger populace in both regions of Jammu and Kashmir.
According to available information, Nadda aims to gather extensive feedback from party leadership regarding their readiness, the execution of initiatives by both the party as well as the Centre along with various public welfare programmes.
In attendance at this crucial meeting will be the BJP core committee members and the extended core group members from the Union Territory, senior leaders, former ministers well as party national general secretary Tarun Chugh and Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh.
The BJP is making a serious push to win at least three Lok Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir, as opposed to two in the last polls.
The party is aiming to secure the Anantnag-Rajouri-Poonch Lok Sabha constituency, which was created after the delimitation and submitted its final report in May 2022. The constituency has a sizeable number of Scheduled Tribe (ST) votes, mainly from the Gujjar and Bakerwal communities. Nominating Ali Muhammad Khatana for Rajya Sabha, who belongs to the Gujjar community, is part of the strategy to woo this community.
The party has also decided to confer ST status to Paharis who mostly dwell in Rajouri-Poonch and the Chenab Valley comprising districts of Ramban, Doda, and Kishtwar in Jammu. The ST status for Paharis, opposed by the Gujjar community, will politically benefit the BJP in Lok Sabha and assembly elections.
Nadda’s visit comes two days ahead of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Jammu on January 9. Shah is expected to discuss the security situation in Rajouri-Poonch in view of the rising attacks on security forces in the region. He will also discuss the party’s readiness for the Lok Sabha polls.
