Packed January for Amit Shah as BJP swings into poll mode

NEW DELHI, (ANI): In his capacity as the Union Home minister and one of the BJP’s key campaign mascots, Amit Shah rarely has a dull day.

And, if his itinerary at the start of the New Year is anything to go by, the heavyweight BJP leader has a packed schedule this January as he will visit as many as 11 states as part of the ongoing Lok Sabha Pravas programme of the BJP, which is aimed at laying focus on Lok Sabha seats where the party’s hold is said to be weak.

The second leg of the Lok Sabha Pravas was recently launched by the party’s national president JP Nadda, with visits to Odisha and Tamil Nadu.

According to the January schedule of the Union Home minister, he has visits lined up across the length and breadth of the country — from Nagaland in the Northeast, Punjab in the north to Andhra and Karnataka in the south. According to top BJP sources, the Union Home minister is also sheduled to visit to Tripura on January 5.

The BJP is seeking its second term in power in the tiny northeast state, which will go to polls for the Assembky in February, this year. In the 2018 Assembly polls, the saffron party wrested power in Tripura, ending the decades-long Left rule. The party fought the polls under the leadership of Shah, who was the BJP’s national president at the time.

The BJP went into the battle for Tripura with the slogan ‘Chalo Paltai’, which translates to ‘Come! Let’s witness change’. Two other states that Shah will visit as part of the BJP’s ‘Lok Sabha Pravas’ is Manipur and Nagaland, on January 6.

While the BJP succeeded in forming the government in Manipur for the second time in 2022, it is also in power in neighbouring Nagaland in alliance with Chief Minister Nephiu Rio’s Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party. Nagaland will also poll for the Assembly in the first quarter of this year.

On January 7, Shah will be touring Chattisgarh and Jharkhand where the party is in the Opposition. On January 8, the Union Home minister is scheduled to visit in the YSRCP-ruled Andhra Pradesh. He will also visit Uttar Pradesh on January 16.

On January 17, the Union Home minister will be touring West Bengal where the BJP is locked a fierce tussle for power with the ruling Trinamool Congress. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the saffron party had managed to win 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal and made further inroads in the state in the last Assembly polls, winning more than 70 seats.

At a recent review meeting, the BJP added a few Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, Maharashtra and Bihar to its tally of ‘weak’ seats. With the addition of the new seats, the tally of the BJP’s ‘weak’ Lok Sabha constituencies has expanded to 160 from 144.

On January 28, Shah will be in Karnataka’s Hubli. The state, where the BJP holds the administrative reins currently, also goes into polls in the middle of this year. On January 29, the Union Home minister will visit the twin states of Punjab and Haryana.

During his visits to states where the BJP has identified ‘weak’ LS seats, Shah will hold public meetings, discussions with party workers and also preside over a host of organisational meetings.

“Of the 160 weak (LS) seats, half will be covered by our national president JP Nadda and the other half will be visited by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh,” a source in the BJP said.

The idea behind the exercise is to focus on strengthening booths, increasing the presence of party leaders and taking the benefits of central schemes to the public.

Several union ministers, including Dharmendra Pradhan, Smriti Irani, Kiren Rijiju, Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Pralhad Joshi, are part of the committee tasked with boosting the party’s hold in the ‘weak’ Lok Sabha seats.

Vinod Tawde is the convenor of the panel while CT Ravi is the co-convenor. (ANI)