The BJP has planned a grand celebration for the the birth anniversary of Dalit icon Dr BR Ambedkar. The party will be organising multiple programmes across the country for 10 days beginning April 15, sources told India Today TV. The move comes ahead of the Assembly polls in Bihar, and is being seen as an effort to reach out to the Dalits, who constitute a key vote bank in the state.
The massive Ambedkar programmes will begin on April 15, a day after Ambedkar Jayanti, and will go on till April 25, sources said. The BJP will organise different programmes on the Constitution, in which many MPs, along with Union Ministers and senior party leaders, will participate, they added.
The BJP is celebrating its foundation day on April 6, the same day when Ram Navami will be observed across the country. BJP chief JP Nadda asked party MPs in a virtual meeting about ideas to celebrate the foundation day and organise multiple programmes on Ram Navami, sources said.
This assumes significance as the BJP is aiming to consolidate its Hindu votes and unseat the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal in next year’s Assembly polls.
Nadda asked the BJP MPs to collect the opinions of the people from across the country on One Nation, One Election – the process of holding simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, sources said.
The MPs have been asked to collect the opinions in the next few days in a neutral way and not under the BJP’s banner so that the people’s mood on the proposed move can be gauged, they added.
