Shah to lead BJP in Lok Sabha polls

BJP president Amit Shah, whose three-year term ends in January next year, will lead the party in the Lok Sabha election in 2019 and its organisational polls are likely to be suspended till then as it focuses on the electoral challenge ahead, party sources said.

A party leader said organisational polls in an election year have often been deferred in the past as well to allow the incumbent president, his team of office-bearers and workers to focus fully on polls.

The party sources said on the sidelines of the two-day Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive meeting that Shah will lead the organisation into the Lok Sabha polls, scheduled for April-May next year. The issue was discussed in the meeting of office-bearers, they said.

Shah had replaced Rajnath Singh as the party president soon after it came to power in May 2014 as Singh quit his post following his inclusion in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet.

He was then elected as the president in January 2016.

The BJP's constitution allows its president to serve two consecutive full terms of three years each. As such, Shah can be elected to the post for one more term.