Inactive BJP MLAs unlikely to get ticket in 2023 polls

By Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Under the garb of a statewide tour by BJP leaders in three different teams, the ruling party is assessing the performance of each legislator besides scouting for suitable candidates where it does not have its legislator.

Recently, three teams of senior leaders led by BJP National General Secretary & In-Charge of Karnataka affairs Arun Singh, State BJP President Nalin Kumar Kateel, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, former chief ministers, B.S.Yediyurappa, Jagadish Shettar and D.V.Sadananda Gowda, visited several regions to get a feedback from grassroot level workers about the performance of the state government, MLAs, MPs and also to identify winnable candidates in the constituencies where the BJP lost in 2018 Assembly polls. The purpose of the tour was to shortlist the list of candidates for the 2023 Assembly elections and finalise them at least six months in advance to enable them work in their respective constituencies.

Currently, the BJP has 119 MLAs as against the total 224 Assembly seats. Since the party is eyeing 150 seats, it is inevitable to name the candidates well in advance to retain power in the State. During the recent visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Bengaluru, he gave clear instructions to state leaders to get into poll mode immediately and strengthen the organisation at the booth level as hardly 12 months are left for the election. The State leaders must come with a blue print about its strategy to achieve the target of 150 seats. Taking serious note of the same, the state leaders are busy holding a series of meetings in districts to elicit opinion about the government and party legislators.

A senior leader said that the performance of every MLA is being assessed to decide whether to go for a new face in case of non-performance or to retain him as the candidate if the achievements are good. The party workers and booth level workers were asked whether the MLAs have been able to take the programmes of both the state and union governments to people and also the voter’s perception about their elected representatives.

The team members also reportedly interacted with MLAs about the behavior of local office-bearers, their co-operation and interaction with the electorate. This would help in getting every bit of information that would be helpful while finalising the tickets for the 2023 Assembly polls.

The ground reality of every assembly constituency in the area visited by the teams has been collected which includes caste-wise population, the key caste that would play a vital role in the election, implementation of government schemes, burning problems in each constituency, involvement of local MLAs in the implementation of programs and leaders who are capable of winning election despite denying ticket to the sitting MLAs.

The leader said the MLAs who failed in the assessment test would not get the tickets in the coming Assembly polls, since they would have lost the confidence of local leaders and workers. It would not be surprising if sitting legislators are denied ticket to contest in the coming Assembly polls. In Uttar Pradesh, over 80 sitting MLAs were denied ticket as they had failed to mingle with local people and strengthen the party. A similar experiment may be done here too in order to bring back the party to power next year.

The inactive and non-interactive lawmakers would not get tickets in next year’s Assembly polls and they would most likely be replaced with new faces.