Selecting 'fit' candidates headache for BJP

Saffron party scales down Mission-84 to 'absolute majority'

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, June 18:  Faced with a lack of 'fit and acceptable' candidates in the constituencies, the BJP has scaled down from its hyped 'Mission 84' and is focusing on absolute majority in next year's Assembly elections in Assam.

At the two-day executive meeting of the party attended by all top leaders and functiories of the State unit, including State party president Siddhartha Bhattacharjee and Union minister Sarbanda Sonowal, BJP's tiol general secretary Ram Madhav stressed that the party should focus on getting absolute majority to come to power.

BJP sources said though the party has received 2,600 applications from aspirants in the 126 assembly segments, yet it is struggling to pick "fit" candidates who will be "acceptable to voters."

"We need to find candidates who will be acceptable to the people. The voters have rejected the Congress in the last Lok Sabha elections. Though the BJP is the obvious altertive, we need to put up candidates who are acceptable to them," Madhav told the meeting which is part of the State unit's brainstorming sessions in the run-up to the 2016 electoral battle.

Party insiders said that the party has been able to single out "potential" candidates in only about 30-35 seats.

Meanwhile, Ram Madhav indicated that development, perennial floods and erosion, unemployment and protection of Kaziranga will be the major election planks of the party in the 2016 campaign.

"Only the BJP can safeguard the interests of the people of Assam. The party has no truck with dystic politics or money politics. We will select only qualified candidates who have the potential of connecting directly with the people," Ram Madhav said, alleging that "falsehood" and "corruption" were the hallmark of the 14-year Congress rule in the State. He said the Centre had released Rs 1,86,000 crore for Assam in the last fourteen years. "Where has all the money gone? The Chief Minister should tell the people where the funds were spent," he added.