This is how BJP plans to win election in Christian majority Meghalaya

Meghalaya is a Christian dominated state where the usual plans of BJP to win elections won’t work effectively, thus they tweaked the plan. This was evident from the election rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Meghalaya where he many times reiterated how his government helped the Christians who were stranded in the conflicted zones.

For this purpose, he cited Modi cited the rescue of 46 nurses from Iraq, safe return of Father Alex Premkumar from captivity in Afghanistan and release of Father Tom Uzhunnalil after a year in captivity in Yemen.

Through this, his purpose was not only to show the growing power of India in world stage but also to shed the Hindutva tag assigned to them by opposition parties. This is necessary for BJP because the state has 75% Christians.

Meghalaya votes for 60-member assembly on February 27.

This is not the first time when BJP tries its best to present themselves as a party which respect all kind of culture and diversity. This was evident during the run-up to the election in Manipur in 2017 which too had a sizable Christian population. There the party candidates often referred BJP s Bharatiya Jesus Party to clear the fear among the minorities towards BJP.

But now they face a real challenge in the state of Meghalaya where they face stiff opposition from Congress party that is frequently attacking BJP for it’s Saffron agenda. There the Church is also openly going against BJP.

So BJP is playing it in such a way that no sensitive issue regarding Christians are hurt, selecting able leaders to run the campaign, not to worsen the beef issue and also to snitch alliances with reliable parties.

Also read: BJP and Congress lock horns again as Karnataka gears up for election

KJ Alphons, a Christian bureaucrat-turned-politician from Kerala, the poll in-charge for Meghalaya. This appointment was seen as the strategy of BJP to woo minority population in the state.

BJP has gone against joining an alliance with National people’s front which is an alliance partner of BJP at centre. But the prospect of a post-poll alliance has not been rejected. This is to protect NPP from having any backlash from people.