BJP to bank on govt’s achievements in 2019
NATIONAL EXECUTIVE Shah to drive campaign, says Manmohan follows party, Modi leads
NEWDELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest next year’s general election on the strength of its performance in the past five years, both on the social welfare and economic fronts, party president Amit Shah said on Saturday, making light of the “grand alliance” the Opposition is seeking to stitch together.
Shah, 53, set BJP the target of emerging from the 2019 parliamentary election with a margin that’s wider than that of 2014, when it clinched a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha for the first time in 30 years. The BJP had then won 282 seats out of 543 Lok Sabha seats.
In a speech at a meeting of the BJP’S National Executive, Shah asked the party not to fret about the opposition grand alliance in the making, noting that the BJP had individually defeated each of its prospective constituents in past elections. He called the proposed coalition an illusion based on falsehood.
The National Executive meetmismanagement ing affords an opportunity for the BJP to take stock of the political situation and discuss strategy for the elections in the face of Opposition attempts to cobble together a broad-based coalition to take on the ruling National Democratic Alliance. Even arch rivals such as the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh have been in talks to contest the next parliamentary election together to stop the BJP’S juggernaut.
The opposition has focused on issues such as suspected irregularities in a deal to purchase fighter jets from Dassault Aviation of France, perceived farm distress and alleged economic in the implementation of polices such as the demonetisation in 2016 and the goods and services tax.
Shah spoke in detail about welfare schemes initiated by the government such as a health insurance scheme for 500 million people, minimum support prices for key crops offering a 50% return over the farmers’ cost of production and Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfers. Meanwhile, India has overtaken France as the world’s sixth biggest economy. Many thousands of shell companies have been shut down and black money has been curbed, he said.
A long-pending demand for constitutional status to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) commission has been fulfilled, Shah said. “The poor, OBCS, women and youth -- every section has been touched,” defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman quoted Shah as telling the BJP leaders.
“We will contest 2019 on the basis of our organization’s strengths and the achievements of the (Narendra) Modi government,” said Shah.