Amit Shah pledges to expand NDA, ‘respect’ to allies

Chennai: Seeking to mollify sulking allies and trigger enthusiasm within the saffron brigade, BJP president Amit Shah on Monday promised “respect” to the existing partners while pledging serious efforts towards expanding the NDA with “new friends” ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.

“We will give respect to our existing allies and bring in new friends before the Lok Sabha elections and give the nation a clean government,” he told a meeting of around 15,000 members of the sakthi and maha sakthi kendras of the BJP at the VGP Golden Beach on the outskirts of Chennai.

While a sakthi kendra in-charge is vested with the responsibility of overseeing the party work of five booth-level functionaries, a maha sakthi kendra office-bearer is the overseer for five sakthi kendra functionaries. Mr Shah, under whose stewardship the BJP has scripted victories in many state Assembly elections after the party came to power at the Centre in 2014, said he would announce its new partners in Tamil Nadu before the Lok Sabha elections.

In Tamil Nadu, where the party is looking for allies to broaden its support base after winning just one seat in 2014, Mr Shah invoked Tamil pride, insisting no other party was as committed to preserving it as the BJP.

“Those who are raising the issue of Tamil pride are engaging in disinformation against us. No party is as committed to preserving Tamil pride and Tamil language as the BJP and its Tamil Nadu unit,” he said.