BJP to launch 'Vijaya Yatras' in poll-bound Karnataka

By Payal Mehta
New Delhi [India], February 6 : In the run-up to the big battle of Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party will launch four mega rath yatras which the party is likely to call 'Vijaya Yatras'.
These four Raths will be launched from four different areas of the state and will converge into one mega-finale yatra.
"The Yatras are in the planning stage and will be launched by end of February or the beginning of March and will cover all the 224 Assembly constituencies," a top party source told ANI.
While the Yatra details are still been worked out, it is known that several top leaders both from the centre and the state will participate.
"Former Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, state president Nalin Kateel and Dharmendra Pradhan who was recently appointed as election incharge could flag off the raths," the source further elaborated.
One rath may be launched from Dhawangiri, another from Chamrajnagar, one from the Kittur Karnataka and one from the Kalyan Karnataka region, a central office bearer said.
These rath Yatras are expected to traverse across a minimum of 12 Assembly constituencies a day and in the period of 18 -20 days the entire state of 224 constituencies would be covered.
"The maha rally which will be at the culmination of the Yatras is to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for which we are also collaborating," the central office bearer further informed.
While the Yatra would make aware the public of the benefits of the double-engine government and talk to beneficiaries of both state and central government schemes, it would also take a report card of the promises made and achieved. The glory of the brave sons of the soil would also feature in the campaign programme which will each evening have a public rally.
"While the Congress leaders patronize Tipu Sultan, we will talk about braves and legends like Kempengowda, Vishweshwaraya amongst others," General Secretary CT Ravi said.
The party has been in an election preparation mode right from the start of the poll year. In January BJP launched the Booth Vijay Abhiyan where in 15 days booth strengthening drive was carried out.
"We formed the booth committees, ensured our party flag reached a large section of the people's homes here and formed booth-level WhatsApp groups. Taking a lead out of Gujarat we also ensured our page committees were formed," BJP General Secretary and Karnataka incharge Arun Singh said.
In the second round called Vijay Sankalp Abhiyan was carried out.
"In 15 days we would've ensured that the stencil and painting of walls with our party symbol was done with 15 such paintings in each booth. Leaflets carrying achievements of both the central as well as state govt have been distributed in over 39000 booths," Singh further explained.
Karnataka has been a BJP bastion for a long time and has been their single big foray into southern India. Despite not having the majority in the last assembly polls after twists and turns, BS Yediyurappa caused the deflection of many MLAs from the JDS Congress side resulting in the fall of the HD Kumaraswamy-led coalition government. In July last year, the party's top brass brought in Basvaraj Bommai to replace Yeddyurappa.
Karnataka will go to Assembly polls later this year.