Stay in battle mode for elections: Shah
BJP president sets goal for NDA governments in all states
The first day of Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) two-day national executive here was reminiscent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah’s campaign during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls last month. For the duo, there is no stop in their party’s electoral preparedness.
The PM’s road show and Shah’s address to the national executive underlined how the success of the past three years has been to transform a staid party — which would earlier rouse only around election time — into a machine that is constantly in battle mode and its cadres perennially galvanised.
The PM drove from the Raj Bhavan to the meeting ground, a distance of a couple of kilometres through some of the major thoroughfares of the city, reminding observers of the road show in Varanasi a little more than a month ago.
Modi was welcomed at traffic intersections by dancers from tribal areas of the state. These communities comprise nearly a sixth of Odisha’s population and BJP is trying to reach out to them.
He got off his black SUV, walked a little distance to wave at boisterous crowds, which at one place broke police barricades to run after the convoy. In his address, Shah asked the party not to be complacent after the electoral victories in recent Assembly polls and prepare for electoral battles ahead in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. The two states will go to polls later this year. Elections are also due in Karnataka in the first half of 2018.
Shah said according to several analysts, the BJP had peaked in 2014. After the landslide victory in UP, analysts were reiterating this.
“But the BJP’s golden period hasn’t arrived yet,” said Shah. That would happen only when all the states in the country had governments of the BJP or its allies, under the leadership of the PM, who has emerged the most popular political leader in postIndependence India.
Shah said he would lead by example. The party president would embark on a 95-day tour across the country to reach out to party workers at booth levels.
He said the party, along with its allies, needed to target Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha and some of the Northeastern states, where the National Democratic Alliance did not have governments.
He said the objective was to make BJP a pan-India party. Shah said 2,470 party workers from across the country would spend a year visiting polling booths, another 1,441 workers would spend six months and 378,000 workers will spend 15 days to reach out to party cadres and ensure better polling management in areas outside their home districts. Briefing the media after the speech, senior party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said Shah’s India tour would end by September. He said the party chief implored national executive members, which consists of BJP’s top 120 leaders, to not become “lazy”, and spend at least 15 days at polling booths across the country.
In his speech, Shah spoke at some length about the “misgovernance” of the Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha, a state which he said BJP would win.
Prasad said Shah did not speak on the constructing a Ram temple in Ayodhya, but it was already a part of the party’s 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 UP Assembly poll manifestos.
Shah also raised the issue of attacks on Sangh Parivar cadres in Kerala and said the BJP would give a fitting response, but by peaceful means. He highlighted the achievements of the Modi government in three years at the Centre, and said other governments had taken two-three terms to accomplish so much.
Odisha Chief Minister (CM) Naveen Patnaik, responding to a query, said he was not worried. “Least bothered,” said Patnaik, also the president of the ruling Biju Janata Dal.
Shah slammed rival parties for raking up the EVM issue, stating they have failed to digest their defeats and were now making excuses. Without referring to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by name, Shah said there was a CM who said he was an Indian Institute of Technology graduate and “an expert at hacking”.
After the Aam Aadmi Party and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury in a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, contended that linking a voter-verified paper audit trail to electronic voting machines could help “restore” confidence among the people on a fair electoral process.
Shah said the Modi government has provided employment to 73.2 million people through the Mudra Bank and gas connections to 20 million poor household under Ujjwala scheme. He also detailed the economic achievements of the government, including the rolling out of the Goods and Services Tax soon. He said the BJP, and its allies, have governments that covers 70 per cent of India's geographical area and 60 per cent of its population. Shah said BJP will make efforts to make India a 'vishva guru', or world leader, and the party should work towards achieving the goal where the lotus, the BJP's election symbol, blooms in all parts of India.