BJP to rake up 'nationalist' issues in Delhi poll campaign to counter AAP's development plank

With the protests against the newly-enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) raging across the country, as well as the national capital, the BJP has formulated a strategy to make Shaheen Bagh protests as one of its main poll planks for the February 8 Delhi Assembly elections, party sources said on Monday.

The party's leaders would be asking the voters whether they are with parties like AAP and Congress, which support the Shaheen Bagh protests, or if they support the BJP's "nationalist" stand on the issue of CAA and National Register of Citizens (NRC), among other issues, sources said.

A flurry of BJP ministers and chief ministers, led by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, are expected embark on a door-to-door election campaign from February 1. The campaign aims to establish a direct connect with 25 lakh families in Delhi, apart from holding more than 15,000 small meetings, according to sources.

Around 200 MPs of the party are likely to take part in the campaigning in the national capital, with three MPs focusing on each assembly constituency.

The sources added that the party is also planning to organise three rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.

The BJP is trying to fall back on larger issues of national interest in order to counter the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP's) narrative of development work done by its government Delhi in the last five years.

Elections for the Delhi Legislative Assembly are scheduled to be held on February 8 and the votes will be counted on February 11. In 2015, Aam Aadmi Party got a landslide victory by winning 67 of the 70 Assembly seats in the national capital.