BJP to replicate Goa model in Lok Sabha polls

The BJP will approach opinion makers from all religions and talk to them about the party, a strategy it adopted during the Goa polls, in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, a senior party official said today.

The BJP workers will sit with opinion makers from all religions and talk to them about the organisation, which has been “wrongly labelled” as a communal party, the BJP’s National Secretary Aarati Mehra told presspersons here.

“While campaigning for Goa (polls), we launched an exercise to reach the heads of all the religions, including the Archbishop, talking to them about the party. We are a nationalistic party and not what we have been projected as,” Mehra said.

“We will tell them not to go (for polls) with a pre-determined mindset,” she said.

“We will work with sensitivity,” she added.

The party in Goa had given tickets to eight Roman Catholic candidates, earning the support of the minority community, which led the BJP to win a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly elections held last year.

The situation across the country is similar to what existed in Goa before the March 2012 polls, Mehra said.

“People want change from the Congress Government. They are fed up of the Congress’ bad governance. We will appeal to people to elect sensitive candidates,” she said, adding that “the Lok Sabha polls would be held this year itself.”