Prepare the ground for a better show in 2019: Shah to cadres

BJP president Amit Shah today asked party leaders to chart a winning path for the outfit from "Kashmir to Kanyakumari", adding that they should prepare the ground for a "better show in 2019" and not just be satisfied with the previous (2014) Lok Sabha results.
Addressing the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting here on its foundation day, he asked party MPs to work for strengthening the outfit in states where its reach remained limited and exhorted them to take the "NaMo track record" of governance to the masses.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not present at the meet as he had left for Jharkhand to attend an event.

Shah asked the MPs to "obey with smile" the top brass' directives for events slated for the next few days.
The BJP has come out with a series of programmes for its parliamentarians and other leaders during the eight-day long period between April 6, its foundation day, and April 14, the birth anniversary of Dalit icon Bhim Rao Ambedkar.
The programmes will focus particularly on the states and the Lok Sabha seats, where the party had not performed well in the 2014 elections so as to improve the party prospects in 2019. The BJP has lined up programmes of Union ministers and senior leaders in these places.

Shah told the saffron leaders that they should not sit back with satisfaction after getting 272 seats (majority mark in the Lok Sabha) but aim for more. The BJP had won 282 seats in the 2014 polls.

BJP's allies may be present in several states where the party is not strong but it should not deter its leaders from working to boost its strength, he said.
"You have NaMO (Narendra Modi) track record starting from Gujarat before you. Take the NaMO role model of good governance and development to the masses... Modi had said in 2014 that the three factors of casteism, family rule and appeasement fail Indian politics.

"People had dealt a blow to these factors by voting for the BJP in 2014. They have done it again in the recent Uttar Pradesh polls. We have vowed to rid polity of these ills," he said.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar briefed reporters following the meeting and said apart from promoting digitisation and Bhim app, a digital payment interface, the party leaders will also inform the masses about benefits of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) during the period.
Shah said BJP was the only party out of over 1,600 registered outfits which has spread on the strength of its ideology and practices internal democracy by holding organisational polls every three year.

Founded in 1980, the BJP is currently at the peak of power with 281 MPs in the Lok Sabha and over 1,398 MLAs in various state assemblies. It is in power in 13 states, he noted, adding that its governments have been re-elected due to their performance.
Its governments are run on three-point agenda of good governance, development and welfare of poor, the BJP chief said.
Shah also mentioned Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's praise of the government and other Lok Sabha members for the passage of the budget, adding that for the first time in the country's history, budget allocations will be spent from the first day of the fiscal.

It usually starts four to five months after the beginning of the new fiscal, the BJP leader added.