Assembly polls: BJP eyes linguistic groups

MUMBAI: The BJP seems to be a quick learner. Having watched the Shiv Sena being humbled in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections, courtesy its ''Mee Mumbaikar'' campaign, the BJP has decided to go out of its way to woo all linguistic groups with the assembly elections just round the corner.
With the October polls promising to be a close contest, the party has chosen to be cautious.
BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan, who is in charge of the election campaign, said the party had decided to be careful this time in view of the dreadful Lok Sabha election experience.
"We are not going to leave anything to chance. I have been liaising with various linguistic groups," he said.
Mahajan has already held a round of meetings with representatives of all major linguistic groups. He met groups from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh separately despite the fact that both speak Hindi.
Similarly, he has spoken to representatives of communities speaking Punjabi, Sindhi, Rajashthani, Hariyanvi, Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam and Kannada.
The BJP strategy is to concentrate on non-Marathi and non-Gujarati voters since there is a general belief in the saffron alliance that the two communities will continue to support it. Hence, the need to reach out to other linguistic communities.
BJP sources said the Lok Sabha election had prompted the party to carry out a systematic study to arrive at a reliable estimate of the number of people speaking languages other than Marathi and Gujarati, identify their areas of concentration and understand their requirements.
The work was entrusted to team of 100 led by former MP Kirit Somaiya.
The team found out that poor voter turnout was an important reason for the defeat of the saffron alliance in five of the six Mumbai seats.
But equally important was the fact that no concerted effort had beenmade to tap various linguistic communities.
Besides, the NDA''s overconfidence had resulted in the party workers being cavalier and not making any extra effort to ensure the alliance''s win. "We have decided to rectify this lacuna," Mahajan said.
The team then selected prominent BJP workers belonging to different linguistic groups and briefed them about the plan to attract votes.
The response, party sources claim, has been excellent.