BJP Preparing for 2019 Lok Sabha Polls as Scheduled

New Delhi: Notwithstanding the push for simultaneous polls, the BJP appears to be in no hurry to go for parliamentary elections along with a round of Assembly elections due to this year-end. The party is said to be preparing for Lok Sabha elections to be held on schedule in the summer of next year, reliable sources in BJP told IANS.

The party’s current strategy on the Lok Sabha polls assumes significance in the context of speculation that the Lok Sabha polls could be advanced to be held along with the elections to the assemblies of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and Mizoram this year end. They said that at their meeting held here on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah asked Chief Ministers of states ruled by the BJP to be ready by February-end on the government and organizational fronts for the Lok Sabha polls next summer.

They also said that Chief Ministers had been told to achieve the new targets regarding the implementation of major welfare schemes of the central and the state governments by February 2019. Amit Shah has directed the Chief Ministers to hold a conference of beneficiaries across their state from manual to the district level. At such conferences, the beneficiaries of Centre’s and state government schemes would be invited and the focus would be to make them BJP voters. Shah has also given a 22-point agenda for implementation at the booth level. The meeting was attended by 14 BJP Chief Ministers and seven Deputy Chief Ministers including those of Bihar, Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh. The meeting resolved to make Modi the Prime Minister again in 2019 by getting a bigger majority than achieved in the 2014 elections.

Simultaneous elections from panchayat to Parliament was the main theme during the last meeting of the BJP Chief Ministers’ Council meeting held in Delhi in February 2018. The issue did not come up on Tuesday. (IANS)