BJP top brass, UP leaders discuss campaign plans

The Bharatiya Janata Party's top brass met party leaders from Uttar Pradesh on Friday to give final shape to their campaign strategy for the upcoming Assembly elections. Former Prime Minister Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, BJP leaders L K Advani and Rajnath Singh and their colleagues from Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Singh, Keshri Nath Tripathy and a host of others assembled at senior leader M Venkaiah Naidu's home in New Delhi for campaign discussions.

The meeting came two days after the party announced its 317 candidates for the 403-seat assembly.

The BJP has forged an alliance with the Apna Dal, a regional grouping that has a support-base in the state's Kurmi community, and the Janata Dal (United).

It is likely to leave some 50 seats to the two partners as part of their electoral understanding. The BJP's central election committee has authorised Rajnath Singh to select the remaining candidates, some 33 in number, for the state elections.

Buoyed by the party's success in Uttrakhand and Punjab, the BJP aims at a campaign that centres around both nationalist and regional issues, such as law and order.

Insiders say the party believes it has been able to win back its Hindu urban base in Uttrakhand and Punjab because of its high-pitched campaign against the Congress-led UPA's minority-oriented schemes.

Also, surging prices of food items were another factor that both the Congress and the BJP believe contributed to government change in the two states.