BJP-led govt in Goa will complete its tenure: Amit Shah

BJP president Amit Shah today said the incumbent BJP-led government in Goa would complete its tenure of five years.

Addressing party workers at a meeting held at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium near Panaji, Shah said the BJP had won all the assembly polls held post 2014.

"The party organisation in Goa has been expanding. I want to give you confidence that the BJP-led government will complete its tenure of five years in Goa. It will also form the next government in the state," Shah said.

He appealed to the party workers to take a vow to end the "probability of instability in the state".

In a veiled reference to the fractured mandate thrown up by the Goa Assembly in 2017 polls, Shah said instability is like an "eclipse" that affects the development of the state.

"We have to take the oath that in the year 2019, we will win both the (Lok Sabha) seats (in Goa), and in the next assembly elections we will win in at least 35 out of the total 40 constituencies in Goa," he said.

The Manohar Parrikar-led government is currently supported by the Maharashtravadi Gomantak Party (MGP), the Goa Forward Party (GFP), and three Independents.

On the occasion, Shah recalled how the BJP rose from a "ten-member" organisation to the "party having 11 crore members".

"We started with ten members as the Jan Sangh and now we have eleven crore members, making the BJP the world's biggest organisation," he said.

In the past, BJP workers used to celebrate even if a party candidate could manage to save his deposit in polls, he said.

"The same party has now become the party with the maximum legislators and MPs. We have maximum number of councillors, maximum number of state governments, and maximum number of chief ministers," the BJP chief said.

He said the BJP's "soul" lies in its booth workers who are the focal point of the party.

"I also started my career as a booth worker who used to sit in the last row listening to the speeches of party leaders. BJP is a party which has made a booth level worker its national president," Shah said, adding that the BJP is the only party where even the son of a tea seller can become the prime minister of the country.

"In the Jan Sangh days, the cadres were specifically told that their politics should be based on ideology. They were told not to go by popularity of a person or the number of people going after him. The kind of success that we have achieved, we should give its credit to the BJP organisation and the booth level workers," Shah said.

He said the BJP had seen difficult phase like Emergency but never gave up.

"We went on progressing because our organisation is affiliated to an ideology and not to any person," he said.