Like Gujarat, BJP wants PM to lead the Rajasthan Assembly poll campaign

New Delhi: Copying the successful Gujarat election model, the BJP plans to make Prime Minister Narendra Modi the party’s face during the Rajasthan Assembly elections later this year due to Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s rapidly declining popularity reflected in the 3-0 loss to the Congress in recently held bypolls.

Just like in the Gujarat polls last year, the BJP intends to push the Chief Minister into the background while Mr Modi leads the charge.

With only about nine months to go for the Assembly elections, saffron spin doctors are against replacing Ms Raje as the Chief Minister, fearing a split in the party. The BJP has 160 members in the 200-member Assembly and the Congress has 24.

The BJP’s debacle in the bypolls gave ammunition to disgruntled party MP from Patna Sahib, Shatrughan Sinha, who said that the state has become the first to give the BJP “triple talaq”.

Sidelined within the party, Mr Sinha also took a jibe in a tweet, “Better late than never, otherwise the disastrous results could or would be soon reformed as Tata-Bye-Bye results. Wake up BJP.”

The BJP lost the Ajmer and Alwar parliamentary seats and Mandalgarh Assembly seat to the Congress in the bypolls, which were being seen as the “semi-final” before the Assembly polls.

Reacting to Mr Sinha’s statements, Union minister Babul Supriyo asked him to “give triple talaq and leave BJP” before he is asked to be khamosh (be silent)” — an allusion to the Patna Sahib MP’s trademark word in Bollywood films.