BJP president JP Nadda wants Uttarakhand leaders to focus more on 23 assembly constituencies that the party lost in 2022 assembly polls. Nadda directed Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and the state leadership to have constant interactions with the booth level workers in all the 23 constituencies.

The BJP won 47 seats in the 2022 Uttarakhand assembly polls losing 19 to the Congress and two each to the BSP and independents. Now the party’s central leadership wants the state organisation to focus on these constituencies most of which lie in Haridwar parliamentary seat where the BJP has fielded former chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat.

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Trivendra Singh Rawat is facing Congress candidate and another former CM Harish Rawat’s son Virendra Rawat.

In a closed door meeting with senior state leaders on Thursday Nadda asked the party chief Mahendra Bhatt to monitor himself the booth activities in all the lost assembly segments and hold direct interactions with teams there. He also asked Bhatt to address rallies in these constituencies and have regular interactions with booth workers.

Nadda directed the BJP leaders specially sitting MPs, MLAs in the nearby constituencies party office bearers to interact with the voters in these assembly segments. He asked them to prepare booth level programmes and ensure that party workers reach out to every voter in the state.

It’s significant that chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami himself held several public meetings, interactions with voters and roadshows in almost half of the 23 identified assembly segments. Dhami divulged this to Nadda in the meeting and said that he has covered around 30 assembly constituencies in his hectic poll campaign that took off on March 21.

The BJP national president further instructed the chief minister to cover as many lost seats as possible in his ongoing public addresses across the state before campaign ends. On Friday, Nadda himself met booth workers of Haridwar Lok Sabha seat and sought feedback on the party’s campaign in the constituency, especially eight of the 14 assembly segments where the party lost in state polls.

Apart from eight in Haridwar, the BJP lost six assembly seats in Nainital, five in Almora and two each in Tehri and Pauri Garhwal parliamentary constituencies.

All five Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttarakhand — Tehri Garhwal, Garhwal, Almora (SC), Nainital-Udhamsingh Nagar and Haridwar — go to polls in the first phase on April 19.