BJP's Andhra unit makes Modi 'poster boy'

Banners featuring only Gujarat chief minister to be used at Sunday's Hyderabad meeting

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s national leadership is yet to announce Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate. But the Andhra Pradesh unit is set to project the Gujarat chief minister as its choice for the top post.

The state unit of the party would launch a poster featuring Modi alone with the slogan “nayi soch, nayi umeed (new thinking, new hope)”. This is the first time that such a poster is being launched by the BJP that will not have any other leaders.

The poster would be unveiled at a public meeting in Hyderabad on Sunday, which Modi is expected to address.

“The workers of Andhra Pradesh unit of the BJP are preparing the posters with the slogan,” said Prabhat Jha, Rajya Sabha member of BJP and Andhra Pradesh in-charge of the party. “This is not being done at the national level by the central BJP leadership. It is for the parliamentary board to decide whether to use the poster nationally or not.”

Some state units of the BJP, especially Karnataka, after its loss in the Assembly election, have been demanding the central leadership announce Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the party.

The Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad is the venue for the meeting and the BJP state unit wants to mobilise a record number of people in the age group of 18-40.

A registration fee of Rs 5 a person would be charged from those attending the meeting. The collection would be donated for relief work in Uttarakhand, which was devastated by cloudbursts, landslides and floods.

A section of the BJP also wants Modi’s photos on T-shirts, stickers and graffiti on vehicles, and on large posters, ahead of the campaigning before the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

The BJP had recently announced Modi as the chairman of the election campaign committee. He was also made a member of the parliamentary board earlier this year. This was seen as a signal that Modi will play a major role in the general election and would lead the election campaign.

A senior BJP leader said state unit members can make posters of senior party leaders as they wish. “There is no decision at the national level (on Modi) but state units are free to make posters of senior BJP leaders. Narendra Modi is a prominent leader and most popular leader of the party and there is no reason to deny this fact,” the veteran said.

Senior leaders of the party also said the posters with only Modi’s image will not be used during the Assembly election campaign in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan because the respective states’ leaders and chief ministers would not like to being undermined by the projection of another BJP chief minister.

“The Assembly election campaign in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan will only be focused on Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje because they are very powerful state leaders and projection of Narendra Modi will only irk the state leaders,” a BJP leader added.