Ever since the debacle in the Assembly election 2018, BJP has been working overtime to step up their game. While party president Amit Shah announced the election in-charges of 23 states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focusing on the north east states of the country.
New Delhi: Union home minister Rajnath Singh and finance minister Arun Jaitley have been given the responsibility to head the BJP's manifesto committee and publicity committee for the 2019 general elections respectively on Sunday.
This announcement came within two days of party president Amit Shah announcing election in-charges of five states and three union territories on Saturday.
The manifesto committee is a very crucial committee before any general election as far as the BJP is concerned. Last time, Murli Manohar Joshi headed the committee, which identifies issues and their specifics that will find place in the manifesto of the party.
In 2014, price rise, corruption by the UPA government, accountable administration and e-governance found place in the manifesto.
For the 2019 elections, the manifesto committee will have another 19 leaders apart from Singh. Leaders like Arun Jaitley, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal and Ravi Shankar Prasad will also be a part of the team.
There are total 17 commitees that have been formed by Shah in preparation for the upcoming election.
The 17 committees are
1. Manifesto committee (headed by Rajnath Singh)
2. Publicity committee (headed by Arun Jaitley)
3. NGO coordination committee (headed by Nitin Gadkari)
4. Content creation committee (headed by Sushma Swaraj)
5. Media committee (headed by Ravi Shankar Prasad)
6. Tour committee (headed by Avinash Rai Khanna)
7. Social Media committee (headed by Shyam Jaju)
8. Beneficiary coordination committee (headed by Saroj Pandey)
9. Knowledge Convention committee (headed by Prakash Javdekar)
10. Election commission committee (headed by Bhupendra Yadav)
11. Office committee (headed by Arun Singh)
12. Travel committee (headed by Arun Singh)
13. Literature/book distribution committee (headed by Shyam Jaju)
14. Mera Parivar, Bhajpa Parivar committee (headed by Avinash Rai Khanna)
15. Kamal Jyoti committee (headed by Anil Jain)
16. Maan ki Baat committee (headed by Arun Singh) and
17. Bike rally committee (headed by Sanjeev Chowrasia)
A close scrutiny of these appointments will make it clear that experience was favoured over young blood. Be it Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad or Shym Jaju — all of them have been old hands at BJP.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, who recently announced that she won’t be fighting the upcoming election, was also given a key responsibility of heading the content creation committee.
Even a versatile committee like the social media is not being headed by the information and technology department head, the young Amit Malviya, but by Shyam Jaju.
Ever since the debacle in the Assembly election 2018, BJP has been working overtime to step up their game.
On December 26, 2018, Shah announced the election in-charges for 18 states.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is emphasising on the northeast states. He held a massive rally on Friday, which was followed by a huge massive cadre congregation presided over by Shah in Tripura.
Though the Lok Sabha polls still have some time to kick in, but the BJP have already blown the trumpet of war.
Last Updated Jan 7, 2019, 9:34 AM IST