Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) launched a nationwide poster campaign with slogans like “Modi Hatao, Desh Bachao” in 22 states, said AAP’s state convener Gopal Rai on Thursday.Gopal Rai also alleged at a press conference that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is engaged in ending the country’s democratic systems instead of fixing the education-health system and removing unemployment.

Posters in Hindi, English and all other regional languages are being put up in 22 states across the country. Rai said that from April 10, similar posters would be put up at universities across the nation to make students aware about the campaign.

JDS MLA from Tumakuru Rural constituency in Karnataka D C Gowrishankar Swamy was disqualified by the High Court of Karnataka on Thursday in a case relating to alleged electoral malpractice. The Court, however, kept the disqualification in suspension for one month, allowing Swamy to file an appeal in the Supreme Court. A single-judge bench of the high court was delivering its verdict on a petition filed by defeated BJP candidate B Suresh Gowda, which alleged electoral malpractice by Swamy for distributing fake insurance bonds to voters during the 2018 Karnataka Assembly election.

The BJP has upped its game in Bihar by stepping up its OBC outreach, especially among Kushwahas, one of the two castes of Nitish Kumar‘s Luv-Kush vote base, and has appointed PM Modi’s key aides to look after its work in the state.The BJP is going to celebrate Emperor Ashok’s birth anniversary on April 2 in Sasaram, which will be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. This comes days after BJP appointed Samrat Choudhary as its Bihar unit president, who is also a Khushwaha. The community sees Ashoka as their ancestor.

Luv-Kush is the alliance between the Kurmi and Koeri castes, which together constitute approximately 15 % of the state population. Nitish Kumar a Kurmi himself, had garnered the support of this caste alliance, to take on the Muslim-Yadav alliance of his once staunch rival Lalu Prasad Yadav.

“The BJP is organising a big public programme to mark the birth anniversary of Samrat Ashoka, whom Khushwahas see as their ancestor. Now, the Luv-Kush alliance whom Kumar treated as his bonded labourers, will now go with BJP, worshippers of Lord Ram,” Choudhary told ET.He said the genesis of Luv-kush alliance was to counter Yadav’s politics of appeasement.

Meanwhile, the BJP has appointed a new co-incharge for Bihar, Sunil Ojha from Gujarat who worked closely with the prime minister and was looking after the party’s work in eastern Uttar Pradesh, a region comprising Modi’s constituency Varanasi.

With Ojha’s appointment, there will be two key BJP functionaries — he and Bhikhubhai Dalsaniya, organisational secretary for BJP’s state unit — both from Gujarat and have worked with Modi for many years since his days as Gujarat chief minister. Ojha was relocated to Varanasi from Gujarat and registered as a voter from Modi’s constituency in 2018.”I was handling the party’s work in eastern Uttar Pradesh, which borders Bihar. So, the demography and social structure in both regions is the same,” Ojha told ET. Ojha’s appointment also came days after the appointment of the new state unit chief.

Bihar has always been an uphill task for the BJP dispensation, and has constantly been posing challenges for the party.

Now, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has redrawn its strategy with new state unit chief and incharges. The coming together of the JD(U) with RJD after parting ways with the BJP, poses a serious challenge for the BJP, as these two parties make caste equations unfavourable for the BJP.