Shah claims will return in ’19 with larger majority

The Narendra Modi government is working for “making India” whereas the Congress is working for “breaking India”, BJP president Amit Shah said on Saturday, asserting that his party will return to power in 2019 with a majority bigger than what it got in 2014.

A party leader said organisational polls in an election year have often been deferred in the past as well to allow the incumbent president, his team of office-bearers and workers to focus fully on polls.

The party sources said on the sidelines of the two-day Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive meeting that Shah will lead the organisation into the Lok Sabha polls, scheduled for April-May next year. The issue was discussed in the meeting of office-bearers, they said. Shah had replaced Rajnath Singh as the party president soon after it came to power in May 2014 as Singh quit his post following his inclusion in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet. He was then elected as the president in January 2016.

The BJP’s constitution allows its president to serve two consecutive full terms of three years each. As such, Shah can be elected to the post for one more term.

Meanwhile, Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “We will return to power strongly and with a good majority. We will win with a bigger majority than what we got in 2014.”

The BJP had won 282 seats out of 543 in the 2014 parliamentary election.

Top party leaders, including Modi and chief ministers of party-ruled states, were in attendance as Shah asserted that it will return to power on the basis of the government’s performance, Modi’s charismatic leadership and its organisational strength.

Shah said his party had defeated all of them in 2014 and their coming together will make no difference to it.