Amit Shah says BJP is yet to reach its peak

New Delhi: In his first address to the BJP’s national office-bearers after it won 303 Lok Sabha seats and formed a second consecutive government at the Centre, party president Amit Shah on Thursday said the “BJP has still not arrived at its peak”. Mr Shah, who is now also the Union home minister, is likely to continue as BJP president at least till the organisational elections are over and he will oversee the Assembly elections in three states due by the end of this year, sources said. Giving credit to the BJP’s agenda of nationalism, good governance, welfare of the poor and the hard work of cadres for the huge mandate the Narendra Modi-led NDA got, Mr Shah said the BJP will reach its zenith when it will rule states like Kerala and West Bengal, among others.

Setting out the party’s roadmap for its organisational expansion, including in regions where it is still seen as weak, and also reaching out to people, Mr Shah also congratulated the party cadre and leaders for the victory and said of the 353 seats bagged by NDA, in 220 seats it had got over 50 per cent of the vote. As part of its roadmap for the future, the BJP will start a membership drive to increase its members by 20 per cent. It crossed the 10 crore mark in its last membership drive, that ended in 2015. The full membership drive is held every six years, and then every three years 20 per cent of members are added.

“During his address Mr Shah said it was the hard work of party workers that in 220 seats out of 353, we got over 50 per cent votes. He repeated that the BJP had not reached its peak yet, as he said on August 9, 2014, soon after taking over as party president,” said BJP general secretary Bhupendra Yadav, quoting Mr Shah. The BJP chief noted he had made a similar observation during his presidential address at the national council meeting in August 2014 and had been proved correct with the party improving its tally of 282 seats by winning 303 seats in the recent general election.

Mr Shah said the 2019 mandate was against jativaad (casteism), parivaarvaad (dynastic politics) and sampradayvaad (communalism), and the results had
shattered the myth of the caste-based alliance in Uttar Pradesh.

For the membership drive, the party has named former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan as its in-charge, who will be aided by party colleagues Dushyant Gautam, Suresh Pujari, Arun Chaturvedi and Shobha Surendran.

Asked whether or not Mr Shah would continue heading the party as it follows the principle of “one man, one post”, Mr Yadav replied: “The party will first go for the membership drive. Organisational elections will happen only after that.” To elect a new president, which is mostly a unanimous decision, at least 50 per cent of the state units’ elections should be completed.”