NDA constituents meet with agenda to further expand before 2019

To show how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance now has nationwide presence and has expanded to 32 parties and to convince other regional parties to join the coalitiion, leaders of all its constituents, half a dozen of which are new entrants to the alliance, met here today.

The show of strength is significant in the run up to the elections to the posts of the President, where the electoral college comprises the two Houses of Parliament and all directly elected legislators. The NDA is currently a mere 20,000 short of the majority mark for the election to the President scheduled for July.

The meeting was also a signal to fence sitters among regional parties to come in the NDA fold. The BJP is not averse to parties like All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam of Tamil Nadu joining the NDA. In the run up to the meet, BJP chief Amit Shah personally invited several of the leaders, from Shiv Sena chief Uddha Thackeray to Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leader Bimal Gurung.

The BJP hopes to expand NDA beyond its current 31 allies in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, especially by bringing smaller parties under the NDA umbrella in the states where the alliance scored poorly in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP has identified 120 seats where it hopes to do well in the 2019 Lok Sabha to compensate for any losses that it might suffer in its strongholds in northern and western India. Most of these seats are in the northeastern states, Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The constituents were also asked to spread the word about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'garib kalyan', or welfare of the poor, agenda, and the over 90 pro-poor schemes launched by the BJP-led government at the Centre.

According to a BJP strategist, the party is keen to forge alliances with smaller parties, particularly parties that represent particular social classes and communities, in areas where it has traditionally been weak.

In recently concluded assembly polls in the five states, the BJP forged alliances with smaller outfits like Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh, and formed governments in Manipur and Goa with the help of regional outfits.

The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All the leading allies attended the meeting, including Telugu Desam Party chief and Andhra CM N Chandrababu Naidu, Peoples Democratic Party leader and Jammu and Kashmir CM Mehbooba Mufti, and the chiefs of its allies in Maharashtra, Bihar, northeastern states, Kerala, etc.