india

Updated: Dec 14, 2018 18:23 IST

Two days after it was dealt a setback in assembly elections in five states, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on Thursday said it will organise a slew of rallies and other programmes aimed at mobilising public support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s re-election bid in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

BJP general secretary Bhupendra Yadav said the party will organise national executive meetings of its seven frontal organisations, and public rallies between December 15 and February 22. “These are aimed to further party’s ideology and achievements in different sections of the society ahead of the 2019 national elections,” Yadav told reporters.

The decision came at a meeting that BJP president Amit Shah had with the national office bearers of the party, state presidents and other senior leaders. “This meeting was called to discuss organisational matters and schedule for future programmes,” Yadav said.

The BJP lost power to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. It won one seat each in Telangana and Mizoram. Shah told BJP leaders that a meeting of the party’s national council will be organised in New Delhi on January 11 and 12, and elected representatives of the party and other senior leaders from the states will attend it. The meeting will also approve a decision taken in the BJP’s executive meeting to extend Shah’s term as party president till the Lok Sabha election. Shah’s term is due to expire in January.

The party will organize a workshop for members of its youth wing in New Delhi on December 15 and 16 to train them on how to reach out to young and new voters, seeking support for Narendra Modi in the run-up to the parliamentary elections. Mumbai north-central MP Poonam Mahajan leads the party’s youth wing and is overseeing a number of programmes targeted at winning support of the young,including first-time voters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a rally of the BJP women’s wing in Ahmedabad on December 22. The rally will follow a two-day meeting of the national council meeting of the women’s morcha, “Leaders from district level will attend this conclave,” Yadav said.

The farmers’ front of the party will meet in Uttar Pradesh on February 21 and 22; and Modi will be speaker at the event. The exact venue of the event has not been finalised yet, Yadav said.

Party president Amit Shah, union minister Nitin Gadkari and other senior leaders will participate in the conclave of the BJP’s scheduled caste morcha in Nagpur on January 19-20. It will be followed by a public meeting of SC workers in Nagpur. Bhubaneswar will host the BJP’s scheduled tribe morcha leaders on February 2-3, at which home minister Rajnath Singh would be a key speaker. The BJP’s minorities morcha will hold its executive meeting in New Delhi on January 31 and February 1.

Outgoing MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das will be key speakers besides Shah at the BJP’s rally for other backward classes (OBC) workers in Patna on February 16. A BJP leader who attended the meeting said Amit Shah made a one line reference to the Tuesday results in his opening remarks and said the party has to keep the ‘rujhan’ (trend) of three states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) in mind and stick to the time-table of the organisational programme decided to achieve victory in 2019.

Another leader quoted Shah as saying that Congress may have won but BJP hasn’t lost. “All of you must now focus on 2019,” he quoted Shah as telling leaders.