NEW DELHI: Shrugging off setbacks in the recent UP bypolls,

chief Amit Shah has said the party will come back with a bigger majority than in 2014. “Elections are quite far off but I can assure you that we, both NDA and BJP, will get more seats than what we managed in 2014 and return to form the government,” Shah told Times Now.

In his first interview after BJP lost prestigious seats of

and Phulpur to SP-BSP combine, Shah said while the party has taken the setbacks seriously and is analysing the reasons, the outcome of the LS polls — both in UP and the country as a whole —is not going to be different.

Asked about the attempts to forge an electoral pact between SP and BSP which could prima facie turn things difficult for BJP in UP where it it reaped 73 of the 80 seats, Shah said the party has enough time to prepare for the challenge. “There is no anti-incumbency,” Shah said as he reeled off schemes launched by the Modi government ranging from provision of free LPG connections to construction of toilets and reaching electricity to unlit villages, claiming they have benefited millions of people.

Asked about

calling him a murder accused on Sunday despite the fact that he was discharged in the Sohrabuddin case, Shah said, “I have not just been discharged, there is no charge against me as of today. I was not just discharged, the judgement says that I was targeted due to political reasons.” He rejected the suggestion that Rahul’s aggression at the

convention where he launched a personal attack also on Prime Minister, marked the beginning of new phase.

“I don’t believe the Congress president can bring about a change in political phases. One political phase has already been decided in the country. This country has moved away from the politics of caste, nepotism and appeasement. Now, politics of performance has begun under the leadership of

. Now, no matter what the Congress president says, this phase cannot be changed.”

He said PM Narendra Modi will stick to Varanasi as his Lok Sabha constituency. “Yes he will contest from Varanasi. There is no question of fighting from any other place, and let me tell you we will come back with the same majority,” he said. The BJP president said the party will not be affected by TDP’s recent exit from NDA. Without naming

, he stressed that going it alone might help BJP in some states, saying: “Maybe we are becoming bigger there.”

Asked whether JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar might pull out of NDA because he is a proverbial political weather cock, Shah said: “Look, all these things (change of political alignments) keep happening and if you said that he changes his ways with the changing winds, then I would like to tell you that he will never leave this alliance because the ball is in our court.”

On Rahul Gandhi’s repeated jibes at Modi for allegedly “helping scamsters” like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya, Shah said, “His (Rahul’s) speech may form an impression on a few journalists, but not on the public. People understand everything. The opposition has not been able to make any charge against the Modi government. Can Rahul Gandhi prove the involvement of even a single minister of the BJP government in any scam? During UPA, the courts, the CAG came out with their observations.”

Commenting on Rahul’s performance after assuming leadership of Congress, Shah said, “After becoming (party) president there were elections in five states — Gujarat, Himachal, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, Everywhere they have suffered huge defeats. He seems happy about bypolls, but what is the position of this party? Phulpur, deposit lost; Gorakhpur, deposit lost; Bihar, Congress fought one seat and lost it.” Shah felt Karnataka government’s move to provide separate religion status to Lingayats would boomerang on Congress in the assembly elections in the state. “People of Karnataka see through all this. If they really had to accord that status to Lingayats, why didn’t they do it earlier when they were in power? The UPA had rejected it.”