BJP parliamentarian and motor-mouth Sakshi Maharaj has said there will be no general elections in the country after Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins this year’s polls.

“I appeal to you to vote in overwhelming numbers this time because there won’t be an election in 2024,” he told a meeting in his constituency of Unnao on Thursday evening. “I am a sanyasi and can see the future. This is the last election in the country.”

Asked about the statement, a state BJP leader said nobody took the 63-year-old seriously: “He can say anything anytime and then backtrack. We don’t care what he says.”

Sakshi had in the past couple of years asserted that “every dead should be cremated” irrespective of religion, and blamed the country’s high population on those with “four wives and 40 children”.

Last week, he had told journalists that the BJP would pay heavily if it denied him a ticket this time. But on Thursday, he said that while he was confident of getting nominated again from Unnao, he would campaign for the party even if he were overlooked.

“Everybody knows that the country will flourish as long as Narendra Modi is in charge. Some people are anxious. They have brought in Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and the (Samajwadi-BSP) alliance. But nobody can defeat Modi,” he said._BJP president Amit Shah had last year told a party national executive that “once the BJP wins the 2019 elections, no one can throw us out in 50 years”.