BJP chief Amit Shah to visit all states by September

Shah is especially focusing on Odisha, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and Telangana, which together send 141 MPs to the Lok Sabha of 543 members, excluding two nominated members.

New Delhi, Apr 25: BJP chief Amit Shah will visit all states by September end as part of his campaign to strengthen the party as it readies for another round of assembly polls and the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

He will spend 95 days, as announced by him in the recent national executive in Bhubaneswar, during the drive, which starts from Jammu and Kashmir. He will spend two to three days in each of the states and union territories. This programme is different from his 15-day tour of five states, which started today with a three-day stay in West Bengal, as the BJP aims at toning up the organisational structure and will not involve much public contact.

"This is for the first time that the president of a party as big as the BJP will be touring all states of the country to strengthen the organisation. We want to make the birth centenary year of Deen Dayal Upadhyay a memorable period in our history," party general secretary Arun Singh said.

Upadhyay is one of the two ideological stalwarts, another being Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, of the saffron party and it has launched a series of nation-wide activities from September 25, 1916 to observe his birth centenary year.

The entire exercise underlines Shah's ambitious plans to increase the party's footprints across the country, especially in electorally important states where it has always been a fringe player, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

He is especially focusing on Odisha, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and Telangana, which together send 141 MPs to the Lok Sabha of 543 members, excluding two nominated members. Despite notching up an unprecedented majority in 2014 Lok Sabha polls by winning 282 seats, the BJP could win only five seats in these states.

As it will likely find it a difficult task to repeat its massive sweep of the west India and states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Shah wants it to win more seats in these six states to make up for any fall in its tally in other states.

PTI