New Delhi: The BJP has decided to postpone its organisational elections in order to fight the 2019 Lok Sabha elections under Amit Shah’s leadership, sources told News18 on Saturday.
Shah’s tenure was scheduled to end in January 2019. The decision was reportedly taken at the party’s national executive which got underway in the national capital on Saturday.
Shah had replaced Rajnath Singh as party president in August 2014 after the latter joined the Narendra Modi government as Home Minister. Shah completed Singh's remaining three-year term. He got his first full three-year term in January 2016.
As per the BJP constitution, a person can get two full three-year terms as party president. At the national executive on Saturday, the party vowed to work to ensure its return to power next year with a bigger victory than 2014, when it had won a majority on its own for the first time.
A slogan of ‘Ajey BJP’ (Invincible BJP) was adopted at the meeting of the party's national office bearers and also presidents of its state units. They pledged to work for the party's victory in Assembly polls in five states and a decision was taken to give extra emphasis on the elections in Telangana, which is likely to go the polls with states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
The national executive will be closely watched for political messaging by top party leadership to manage caste calculations ahead of the Assembly elections. Recent Constitution amendments to restore stringent bail provisions in the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act triggered protests by upper caste groups in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar earlier this week.
The government had to bring amendments in Parliament to nullify a Supreme Court order, which some NDA allies and MPs alleged had watered down the law framed in 1989. Protests in the first week of April by Dalit groups against the court ruling had led to large-scale violence in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the national executive on Sunday afternoon.
The meeting, earlier slated for August, was postponed following the demise of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The venue for the national executive has been named Atal Sthal after the late party patriarch. Banners and posters with Vajpayee’s photos have been put up paying homage to the first non-Congress prime minister to complete a full term in office, in what is being seen as an attempt by the party to underscore his legacy in the face of upper caste unrest.
The party is likely to pass three resolutions in the executive, laying emphasis on the current political situation in the country and will prominently highlight schemes and programmes of the Modi government.
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