lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Mar 12, 2019 06:06 IST

A day after Lok Sabha poll dates were announced, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ( BJP) brass on Monday began discussing their election preparedness and strategies, with party chief Amit Shah meeting office bearers and Home minister Rajnath Singh holding talks with members of the manifesto committee.

The Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19 while counting of votes in 543 constituencies will be taken up on May 23.

The BJP manifesto committee, headed by Singh, met at his residence with defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Union ministers Radha Mohan Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, general secretary Bhupendra Yadav and other members attending. The 20-member manifesto committee had set up 15 sub-committees to work on the 2019 “Sankalp Patra”, or manifesto.

The BJP has already launched a campaign ‘Bharat ke mann ki baat, Modi ke saath’ last month to seek suggestions and voters’ expectations for a “new India” from 10 crore families across the country before giving a final shape to its election manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls.

Based on public suggestions, the BJP will prepare its manifesto. Later in the evening, BJP chief Shah also discussed poll preparedness with top party leaders and office-bearers. Finance minister Arun Jaitley also held a meeting with party spokespersons at the party headquarters. Jaitley, one of the chief election strategists of the party, has been regularly visiting party offices and holding discussion with leaders.

The ruling party’s meetings came on a day when the Congress attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allegedly destroying the economy through demonetisation.

The Congress’s fresh attack against Modi on demonetisation came following revelations that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had contested the impact of the move, particularly in the context of its stated objective of curbing black money and counterfeit notes.

Citing the minutes of the RBI’s central board of directors’ meeting held just prior to Modi’s November 8, 2016, announcement, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the government imposed demonetisation on the RBI and termed it a “huge money lacquering scheme”.

The minutes of the RBI board meeting attended by the then Governor Urjit Patel were obtained and made public by RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak.

“The fact that the directors were not convinced by the objectives which the government sought to achieve, particularly the impact on black money and counterfeit notes, proves that the demonetisation decision was imposed on the RBI which ultimately devastated the Indian economy,” Ramesh told the media here.