Patna, June 25: The BJP MLAs are spending some tensed moments these days. For, the party has launched a kind of internal exercise to get feedback on the performance of its sitting candidates and also on the prospective ones where the party plans to contest during next Assembly elections.

In the 2010 Assembly elections, the party contested 102 seats and won 91. The party, at present, has 86 MLAs with one sitting MLA (from Kadwa in Katihar) having died and four MLAs having changed sides after which the party lost in the bypolls held subsequently. The four constituencies, which the BJP had won in 2010 but have not gone to other parties are - Chiraiya in East Champaran, Chhapra in Saran, Baisi in Purnea and Bhagalpur.

This Assembly elections, the party intends to contest at least 160 seats and the candidate identification process of the new seats, from where BJP had not contested in 2010, is also going on in addition to the performance assessment of the sitting MLAs.

"Apart from getting surveys done using independent agencies, we are also taking telephonic feedback from random voters in addition to the feedback being provided by the party workers. Based on these inputs, a report would be sent to the central leadership which would take final call on the name of candidates who would finally be fielded by the party," a BJP strategist, requesting anonymity, told The Telegraph.

There is a very interesting method, added the strategist so far as report generation based on the feedback is concerned.

"A sitting MLA about whom the report from the ground is okay is marked as 'good' whereas different remarks are given for those not having satisfactory performance. In such cases remarks vary," said the BJP strategist.

Throwing more light on the purpose of the exercise, another senior BJP leader said in case of performing MLAs only one name would be sent to the central leadership in the list of prospective candidates for a given constituency whereas in case of non-performing MLAs at least three names are sent to the central leadership from among whom the final selection is made.

The BJP leader, however, added that the feedback collection work about sitting MLAs and prospective candidates would continue till at least two months before the actual election date and final call would be taken in the last stage only.

"Apart from changing the non-performing faces, the party also sometimes changes the constituencies of sitting candidate keeping the ground realities in mind," he added.

Pointing out an example, he said one sitting MLA from one of the Assembly constituencies in East Champaran district had himself pleaded for change in constituency and the party was looking into his plea.

The BJP leader also maintained that so far as changing few of the sitting MLAs was concerned, some changes were bound to take place but the number of such MLAS could not be assessed now.

"It is a long process and our party has a very structured system to address such issues. It would take some time," he added.

Even though the BJP is doing this exercise in hush-hush manner and only few senior leaders from the state have been kept in the loop, some of the sitting MLAs have become alert and are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that a positive feedback is given about them from the ground level.

"I have increased the frequency of my interaction with party workers and also try to be in sync with the issues concerning people of my constituencies," admitted one BJP MLA from north Bihar.

Another BJP MLA, who hails from the central Bihar region, maintained that such practices put extra burden on the legislators as somewhere in the back of their mind tension remains that they might not get the party ticket.

Asked regarding the exercise, BJP state unit president Mangal Pandey said: "I don't have any knowledge about this exercise. According to me, all the sitting MLAs of our party would get party tickets during the Assembly polls."