NEW DELHI: With Assembly elections in Bihar scheduled later this year, the BJP has started identifying residents of the state who are settled in other parts of the country.
The party has appointed several MPs to lead outreach teams in these states to highlight the achievements of the party and seek support, sources said.
According to sources, the BJP has formed a special team of Bihar MPs to focus on state residents living in different parts of the country and has collected proper data on them.
The MPs have been tasked with identifying Bihari residents who either hold voter ID cards of the states they currently reside in or still possess voter ID cards from Bihar.
Party leadership has also instructed these MPs to spend at least one week every month in the assigned states to meet the Bihari community and highlight the work done by the NDA government in Bihar.
Sources added that in each state, MPs have been assigned the responsibility of identifying non-resident Biharis districtwise, along with details about their professions. For instance, in Gujarat and Haryana, the BJP has already compiled district-wise data of Bihari residents.
This data also tracks the growth of the nonresident population since 2020. In Gujarat’s Surat, the Bihari population is around 2.53 lakh, an increase of nearly 50,000 from 2020.
Similarly, in Ahmedabad, the Bihari population has grown from 39,000 in 2020 to approximately 50,000. Data has also been compiled for districts such as Kutch, Vadodara, Rajkot, Valsad, Bharuch, and Jamnagar.
In Haryana, the data covers districts like Faridabad, Sonipat, Gurugram, Panipat, and Karnal, all of which have seen a significant increase in Bihari residents over the past five years. Chhattisgarh has also been mapped, with data collected from districts such as Korba, Raipur, Surguja, Raigarh, Bilaspur, and Koriya.
Sources said the party believes it is important to connect with non-resident Biharis to inform them about the NDA government’s achievements in Bihar and to encourage their families back home to vote for the alliance in the upcoming elections.
The BJP is part of the NDA alliance in Bihar, which includes Nitish Kumar’s JDU, the LJP (RV) led by Chirag Paswan, Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM, and others. In the 2020 Assembly elections, the BJP won 74 seats, emerging as the second-largest party behind Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
The BJP plans to highlight several welfare schemes launched by the Narendra Modi-led central government, as well as initiatives of the NDA government in the state. The party also aims to emphasise key infrastructure and development projects announced in Bihar by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. Elections for the 243-member Bihar Assembly are expected to take place in October and November.
The BJP-led NDA will face off against the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, which includes the Congress, Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), and Left parties. All major political parties have begun preparing their campaign strategies for what is expected to be a crucial and closely contested election.