BJP president Amit Shah asked party workers in Madhya Pradesh Saturday to make development their main poll plank to take on the opposition, which, he said, will rake up issues of caste and religion.
He said party workers should "set the election agenda" around the issues of security, infiltrators and national pride.
The BJP-ruled state, where assembly elections will be held on November 28, recently witnessed resentment of upper castes against an amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Addressing the workers at Dussehra Maidan in Indore, Shah said, "We will talk about development in the coming elections, but they (opposition) will talk about caste and religion.
"They have a habit of involving people in caste issues. This was done during the past assembly elections in Maharashtra and Gujarat," Shah said.
"Development always wins against casteism," the BJP president said.
Organisations representing upper caste communities staged protests in Madhya Pradesh in September against the amendment to the SC-ST Act, which restored the provision of immediate arrest of the accused under the law after the Supreme Court had inserted certain safeguards.
Shah said party workers should present before people a comparison between Congress governments and the BJP government which is in power in the state for 15 years.
They should also highlight the achievements of the Narendra Modi government, he said.
"You should set the election agenda around the country's security, infiltrators and the country's pride," he said.
Later speaking at a rally in Ratlam, Shah termed infiltrators "termites" and vowed to drive each one of them out of the country.
In his speech at Dussehra Maidan in Indore, he targeted the Congress for not projecting its chief ministerial face against BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
"On one side there are Raja-Maharaja and industrialist, while on the other there is our leader (chief minister) Shivraj Singh who has come from a poor, backward class family," he said.
"Raja-Maharaja" was an apparent reference to Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and "industrialist" referred to state Congress chief Kamal Nath.
Shah also termed Congress veteran Digvijay Singh, who was chief minister of the state from 1993 to 2003, as "Bantadhar" (one who brings ruin).
"When Mr Bantadhar left the CM's chair, the annual per capita income in Madhya Pradesh was Rs 14,000, which under the BJP government has touched Rs 72,500," he claimed.
The BJP government in the state is far ahead on "178 development indicators" compared to the Congress rule, Shah said.
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