NEW DELHI: Projecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “UP wala”, BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday made a strong pitch for the party’s surge in next year’s state polls, saying its “victory march” would be incomplete without a win in the country’s largest state.
Addressing a rally of booth-level workers of the Braj region as part of preparations for the Assembly polls, he lashed out at the SP, BSP and Congress, alleging that they had been running “corrupt” regimes for many years and that BJP would take action if it came to power in the state. He also attacked Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for asking what the Modi government had done in two years, telling the Congress leader that “the biggest thing we have done is to give the country a Prime Minister who talks” as “for 10 years no one except you and your mother heard the PM speak.”
The BJP’s aggressive strategy is likely to be the highlight of the national executive meeting, scheduled for June 12 and 13 in Allahabad, where the party may not shy away from pushing Hindutva issues though a declaration of a CM pick is unlikely.