What’s BJP’s Mission 144?

So, under Mission 144 BJP wants to take its programs and policies to the people. This is also an exercise to assess the ground situation.

There are almost 9 state assembly elections this year stretching from Tripura in the northeast-to Telangana in the South. The election for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections concluded not even a month ago and the BJP has already rung into the new year with its campaign for the 2024 elections which is almost 15-17 months away.

As a matter of fact, while the BJP started this campaign at the beginning of 2023, the planning for the same began in September 2022.

Well, it isn’t an exaggeration when one says that the Bharatiya Janata Party is always in election mode.

The party has identified 144 loksabha seats that it lost in 2019 and has geared up for the campaign here. From Central leaders to state ones, all hands are on deck to cover these 144 Red Alert seats. The BJP has reportedly also mapped out the seats and plans to win them.

So what is BJP’s Mission 144? Which are the seats BJP finds difficult to win? And what’s the plan it is drawing up?

Let’s discuss this in today’s article:

BJP President JP Nadda today arrived in Chandrapur. He is flagging off BJP’s “Mission 144” from Maharashtra where the party is focusing on as many as 18 seats. Apart from Chandrapur, he also addressed a rally in Aurangabad in the Marathwada region. He is accompanied by all the top leaders of BJP from the state: Including deputy cm devendra Fadnavis, Central ministers like Raosaheb Danve, Nitin Gadkari, Bhagwat Karad and Maharashtra BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule.

But let’s first understand the background of mission 144?

Back in September 2022, the Bharatiya Janata Party has a brainstorming session. In this session, the party decided to focus on the 144 seats that it felt were “difficult” to win in 2019. In short, the seats it lost in 2019. Then it tasked all the union ministers to helm the party’s outreach program in these constituencies under Pravas Yojana.

Every minister was allotted 3-4 seats each. These Ministers had two major responsibilities: 1. Help boost the organizational workers in these constituencies 2. Identifying next-gen leaders of BJP to groom them.

Under the second round of this outreach program, gen secretary in charge of that particular state will also join the union ministers.

What is interesting is, how much BJP has emphasized the Top most leaders doing the groundwork. According to reports, Home Minister Amit Shah in the brainstorming meeting flagged that some ministers have not visited all the constituencies allotted to them and that while they are a part of the cabinet, they can’t escape organizational responsibilities. He also reportedly said, “The Prime Minister is popular, but if the organization machinery is not oiled properly and kept in good condition, repeating our electoral performance would be almost impossible. Without a strong organization, the BJP cannot repeat its success.”

Why BJP Needs Mission 144?

It has been eight years since BJP is in power. After winning 2019 with a historic margin, the party was on its bull run. It still is, winning state elections one after another. However, the realities around are also trickling in. BJP may deny it but isn’t so blind to not see it. As 2022 passed, the country’s unemployment rate climbed up to 8.30%. Rising inflation has people spending more as compared to what they are earning.

Probably that is why the Centre has extended its PM Garib Kalyan yojana under which no-cost food grains will be provided to 80 crores of poor, for the entire of 2023. Apart from the fact that BJP may not have any major issues to bank on in 2024.

According to the IMF warning, 2023 will be even worse than 2022 for the global economy. Along with the Russia-Ukraine war, the threat of Covid resurgence, Recession in China-the 2^nd largest economy in the world, is a matter of concern. And although some countries will face the heat of the recession, those who will not face a recession-like economic gloom. Even though India according to the Modi govt has managed the economy better than other countries, the plunging rupee and rising inflation can potentially hamper its prospects.

So, under Mission 144 BJP wants to take its programs and policies to the people. This is also an exercise to assess the ground situation.

Have these ministers done any groundwork in the previous outreach?

Out of the 144 seats, many are the seats the party had lost but there are some seats that the party had won in 2019 but now seem difficult to win due to multiple factors. The ministers who were sent to these constituencies were asked to gather electorally crucial data on religion, caste, geography, the inclination of voters, and the reasons behind it. Based on it the party has prepared a blueprint of sorts. The ministers reportedly have also done a SWOT analysis of these seats.

Where the BJP faces major difficulties?

Now this internal assessment and the names of difficult seats for BJP is not available in the public domain. But looking at where the bJP top leaders are conducting rallies, one can do the homework. For example: So far, there are three such seats in BJP’s book one can look at:

1. Mandya:

Home Minister Amit shah spend the last week of 2022 in this district of Karnataka. While that is crucial from the Karnataka assembly perspective, one shouldn’t forget that it is also important for the Loksabha polls. In 2019, Sumalatha Ambareesh, wife of popular Kannada actor ambareesh as an Ind candidate won here defeating the son of JDS leader HD Kumaraswamy. BJP/Congress did not put any candidate against her. Now, the Mandya region is traditionally dominated by JDS. Even if he lost last time, Nikil Kumaraswamy had a formal launch in politics a few weeks back, indicating his shift to full-time politics. So, this may be one of the seats BJP is focusing on.

2. Chandrapur:

The one seat BJP could not win in 2019 in Vidarbha was Chandrapur. Significantly, this was the only seat where Congress defeated BJP. Also the only seat it had won out of the 48 seats in the state. Here, Congress’ Suresh Dhanorkar had won defeating BJP candidate. The vote margin between the two candidates was just 45,000. Interestingly, the candidate of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi which ranked third had polled more than 1 lakh votes, denting BJP. So Chandrapur is a difficult constituency for BJP.

3. Aurangabad:

After Chandrapur in Vidarbha, BJP’s other focus is on Aurangabad in the Marathwada region. Traditionally, this seat belonged to Shivsena. The party used to contest the seat when it was in alliance with BJP. But after a break-up with Shivsena, BJP is eying the seat. One must note here, that in 2019-AIMIM candidate Imtiaz Jaleel won this seat wresting it from Shivsena. However, the BJP is in a catch-22 situation. After the collapse of the MVA govt and Shinde’s rebellion, many Shivsena MLAs from this region have joined Shinde, who now sits in the govt with BJP. The saffron party eyeing the seat may not go down well, with the leaders from Aurangabad.

Apart from these 2 seats, in Maharashtra BJp is looking to cover 16 more seats. In 2019 BJP won 303 seats out of the 437 it contested. It lost 134 seats. The majority of these seats are in South India. The BJP reportedly is also drawing up a plan for its South Outreach, which except for Karnataka has remained a pipe dream for the BJP to conquer.