(From left) BJP leaders Harin Pathak, Parsottambhai Rupala and Hukumdev Narayan Yadav at the news meet in Patna on Sunday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

The BJP seems all set to replicate the sheela pujan in a different form when it kicks off the “iron collection drive” for the construction of 182m “Statue of Unity”, a dream monument of India’s iron man Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the largest statue in the world in Gujarat.

Briefing reporters after a workshop by the BJP, Sanjeev Chaurasia, the state convener for the “iron collection drive”, hinted that the party would collect a piece of iron from each and every village where a public meeting would also be held.

The drive is not only going to be part of campaign in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections but there will also be a concerted effort to familiarise Narendra Modi, the party’s prime ministerial candidate, to the rural masses, said sources in the BJP. Modi’s appeal is definitely there in urban Bihar but it needs an impetus in the rural areas, they added.

To collect maximum iron from Bihar with an aim to penetrate the bastion of chief minister Nitish Kumar after the JD(U) broke ties with the BJP in June, Modi confidant and BJP vice-president Parsottambhai Rupala, six-time BJP MP from Ahmedabad (East) Harin Pathak, senior ministers in Modi’s cabinet Ganpat Bhai Vasava, Dilip Thakore, Jaswantsinh Bhabhor, Jaydrathsinh Parmar and BJP Kishan Morcha national president and “Statue of Unity” national coordinator Om Prakash Dhankar were in the city.

The leaders directed the state BJP leadership to collect maximum iron from Bihar targeting Dalits and Mahadalits, who constitute a good part of the Nitish vote bank.

Rupala said: “The iron collection drive will start on December 15, the death anniversary of Patel, and will continue till January 26. As part of the drive, at least one used farm tool (iron) will be collected from every village.”