With the INDIA bloc preparing to take its campaign against the Election Commission and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls to the streets of Delhi, BJP president Nitin Nabin on Thursday held a series of meetings with senior party leaders and Union ministers to discuss the organisation’s next course of action.
Nabin first chaired a meeting of the BJP’s national general secretaries at the party headquarters, where organisational matters, the party’s upcoming programmes and its action plan were discussed.
He later held another meeting attended by several senior leaders and Union ministers, including Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Piyush Goyal, Kiren Rijiju and Ashwini Vaishnaw. Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya, former Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and BJP national general secretary Smriti Irani were also learnt to have attended the meeting.
The meetings came three days before the INDIA bloc was scheduled to hold a rally at Ramlila Ground on November 1 to protest what it has alleged are irregularities in the functioning of the Election Commission and the SIR exercise.
There was no official word from the BJP on the specific issues discussed at the meeting involving the ministers. However, the discussions were learnt to have included the Opposition’s sustained campaign against the SIR exercise and the party’s response to it.
The sequence of meetings brought together the organisational and political aspects of the BJP’s preparations, with Nabin discussing internal programmes with the general secretaries before holding deliberations with senior ministers.
The BJP chief later confirmed the organisational meeting in a post on X, saying, “Today, at the BJP headquarters, I held a meeting with the national general secretaries and had a detailed discussion on the upcoming action plan and various matters related to the organisation.”
The meetings assume significance as the SIR issue moves beyond political exchanges towards larger public mobilisation, with the INDIA bloc’s November 1 rally expected to put the Election Commission and the revision of electoral rolls at the centre of its campaign in Delhi.
For the BJP, Thursday’s consultations came as the party prepared to respond to the Opposition’s campaign, even as its leadership continued to work on organisational programmes and its action plan.
