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| Poonia’s appointment signals BJP’s bigger plans for J&K after Punjab elections | | | 
Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 23: The appointment of Satish Poonia as the BJP’s in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir is being seen as a strong signal that the party has ambitious plans for the Union Territory, to be rolled out once the crucial Punjab Assembly elections are behind it.
The BJP on Wednesday announced a sweeping organisational reshuffle, naming new state in-charges and co-in-charges across all 28 states and eight Union Territories, as the party moves to recalibrate its poll strategy nationwide. The appointments were announced by BJP national president Nitin Nabin.
Poonia, a recently appointed national general secretary and a seasoned political operator from Rajasthan, has now been handed dual responsibility — as in-charge of both Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. Reena Kashyap of Himachal Pradesh has been named co-in-charge for J&K, while Delhi leader Rajkumar Bhatia has been appointed in-charge for the Union Territory of Ladakh.
With Punjab headed to the polls early next year, the party has entrusted the state to Poonia — widely regarded as one of its more experienced organisational hands. Punjab is seen as the BJP’s next major electoral target after West Bengal, and the choice of a leader with Poonia’s track record underlines how high the stakes are for the party in the state.
However, it is Poonia’s added charge of Jammu and Kashmir that has drawn the most attention within party circles. Handing the Union Territory to an experienced leader already occupied with a high-stakes state like Punjab suggests the BJP is not looking at J&K as a routine organisational assignment — but rather as a theatre where it intends to make a concerted push once its Punjab campaign is done.
Party insiders suggest that the sequencing is deliberate: with Poonia’s bandwidth fully committed to Punjab in the run-up to elections, any major organisational or political push in J&K is likely to gather pace only after the Punjab results are in — reinforcing the view that the BJP is playing a long game in the Union Territory, timed carefully around its bigger electoral commitments. |
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