Shah all set to begin 95-day country tour
BJP president Amit Shah will do a 95-day countrywide tour, starting this month from Jammu and Kashmir and spending at least two days in each state to review the party’s organisational activities.
The trip is significant as the BJP rules 13 states, shares power in four, and is pushing to broaden its national footprint in regions that are not its traditional strong-points.
Spectacular assembly election victories in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand last month appear to have whetted the BJP chief’s hunger for expanding the party’s footprints from “Kashmir to Kanyakumari”.
He has sought to galvanise the party cadre ahead of the 2019 general elections and better its 2014 tally in the Lok Sabha, where the BJP has a strength of 282 parliamentarians.
Shah will spend three days in Jammu and Kashmir in Aprilend, and he will be in Tamil Nadu — a state where the BJP has negligible presence — between May 10 and 12.
Besides the 95-day tour, he will spend a fortnight to meet the party’s booth-level workers.
Prime Minister Modi has cautioned the BJP against repeating the mistakes of party rivals.
He said in his concluding address at conclave on Sunday that his party should be different from those who had been in power in the past. “You should not get overwhelmed by power. Be different.”
Modi did not name the Congress but the hint wasn’t lost as the party has ruled the country for the most part since Independence. A BJP general secretary said Modi was loud and clear in driving home the message that leaders should not indulge in promotion of self-interest, a flaw that overwhelmed the Congress.