New Delhi:

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is being projected by a section within the BJP as the party's prime ministerial candidate for the next Lok Sabha polls, on Tuesday met a host of top leaders including Atal Behari Vajpayee and LK Advani.

Here to attend the BJP Parliamentary Board meeting, Modi utilised the opportunity to spend the entire day with the top leaders whose support he would require at the time the party decides on its Prime Ministerial candidate.

Today's meetings assume significance as Modi is reportedly pushing the party hard to declare him as BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate ahead of the general elections.

Modi has asked top party leaders to "effectively use the failures of the UPA government" and also project the successes of the BJP-led governments in various states and achievements during the previous NDA regime, party sources said.

He also called for making optimum use of media, including social media, to put forth the party's views before the public in an aggressive way, they said.

This was the first time that Modi attended the BJP Parliamentary Board, the top decision-making body of the party, after he was nominated as its member by party president Rajnath Singh recently.

Modi met former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at his residence and sought his blessings. Vajpayee is indisposed for sometime now.

Soon after his arrival in Delhi, the Gujarat Chief Minister headed straight to Advani's residence and spent some 40 minutes with him and later termed the meeting as "wonderful".

"In Delhi today. Had a wonderful meeting with Advaniji on arrival at Delhi," Modi said on Twitter after meeting Advani.

He then headed towards former BJP President Nitin Gadkari's residence and spent about an hour with him. Gadkari is considered close to the RSS and his support is crucial to Modi.

While these meetings were scheduled before BJP Parliamentary Board meetings, he met party president Rajnath Singh soon after the meeting and had lunch with him.

The Gujarat Chief Minister also spent almost two hours with BJP's General Secretary (Organisation) Ram Lal, who is also considered close to the RSS.

Modi discussed internal party affairs with Ram Lal, as also the party's strategy for the forthcoming 'Jail bharo' agitation from May 27 to June 2 against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the coal block issue, the sources said.

source:http://zeenews.india.com

Bhopal:

BJP Vice-President Uma Bharti, a sitting MLA from Uttar Pradesh, is likely to contest the next Lok Sabha election from Amroha in the neighbouring state.

"The BJP is seriously considering fielding Bharti, a prominent face of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, from Amroha seat in Uttar Pradesh," sources close to her said on Friday.

The former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister forayed into Uttar Pradesh poll politics in 2012 and was elected from Charkhari Assembly constituency. Charkhari is part of Bundelkhand, a backward region spread over both the states.

Party President Rajnath Singh, who inducted Bharti in his new team announced in March, has already taken her consent for Amroha in north-west Uttar Pradesh. Aligarh, too, is on the radar of the BJP leadership for her, they said.

Uma Bharti may contest Lok Sabha polls from Amroha

Bharti forayed into UP poll politics in 2012 and was elected from Charkhari Assembly constituency.

The sources denied reports that the 53-year-old firebrand leader may contest the Lok Sabha polls from Bhopal, a seat which she won in 1999. The party wants to utilise her services in Uttar Pradesh, a state having the maximum (80) Lok Sabha seats and which also gave birth to the Ram temple movement, to cash in on her image as a top Hindutva leader, they said.

The BJP had deputed her in Uttar Pradesh as star campaigner for the 2012 Assembly polls after her return to the party fold in 2011 and was tasked with reviving the saffron outfit in the crucial northern state. However, there was no significant turnround in BJP's fortunes in UP and the party came a distant third after SP and Mayawati-led BSP.

Bharti, who was a minister in the Vajpayee Government, left BJP in 2005 and floated her own outfit Bhartiya Janshakti Party. She returned to BJP two years ago. Though she lost her first Parliamentary election in 1984, Bharti never looked back and won the Lok Sabha polls from Khajuraho in 1989, 1991, 1996 and 1998.

source:http://ibnlive.in.com/

The study conducted by IRIS Knowledge Foundation and Internet and Mobile Association of India said, "There are 160 high impact constituencies out of the total of 543 constituencies, which are likely be influenced by social media during the next general elections."

India has about 62 million social media users and the numbers are continually increasing.

The study categorises high impact constituencies as those where "Facebook users account for over 10 per cent of total voters in a constituency."

Maharashtra has the maximum high impact constituencies (21) followed closely by Gujarat (17).

Uttar Pradesh comes third with 14 high impact constituencies followed by Karnataka (12), Tamil Nadu (12), Andhra Pradesh (11) and Kerala (10).

Madhya Pradesh scores low with nine and the nation capital has seven such constituencies.

While Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan settle with five high impact constituencies, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir settle with four high impact constituencies, the lowest.

However, the study pointed out, "It is not the number of likes and tweets that are going to determine the probability of winning of a certain candidate but the ability of a candidate to engage with the electorate, by rising above the media clutter, and by trying to get his or her message across to the voter directly."

The study based its findings on the changing scenario over the years with greater online activities in debates, discussion and initialisation of protests digitally.

The report also stated that a total of 67 constituencies fall within the medium impact constituencies, meaning those where "a Facebook user can influence one other voter who may not be on Facebook."

There are 60 low impact constituencies and the rest 256 are tagged under "no impact constituencies."