Amit Shah to meet UP booth-level chiefs from January 30

New Delhi: BJP President Amit Shah will return to basics as he kicks off the party’s preparations in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from January 30. Shah will hold six meetings in as many regions of UP over ten days with BJP’s booth-level presidents.

“Each meeting will have a presence of about 25,000 booth-level presidents of the party in UP. It will be the political message from BJP’s national president, our top-most leader, to the booth president, who is the lowest-level leader,” BJP’s state vice-president and booth committee in charge JPS Rathore told ET.

This strategy of focusing on the 1.4 lakh booths, ‘Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot’, was the brainchild of Shah when he was the in-charge of UP in the 2014 elections. BJP built upon the idea during the 2017 polls, with PM Narendra Modi then holding a rally of all booth-level workers in Lucknow. The party now feels motivating its booth-level workers is vital ahead of the battle for UP where the SP and BSP are in an alliance.

Shah will travel to Kanpur and Lucknow for two such meetings on January 30, to west UP for two more meetings on February 2 and 6 and chair meetings in Varanasi and Gorakhpur on February 8. 

BJP has divided the state into six regions. Shah will be accompanied by chief minister Yogi Adityanath, state in-charge JP Nadda and BJP UP chief MN Pandey in these meetings.

“The district presidents of the party had attended the national convention of the party in Delhi recently, but it is the booth-level president who fights the actual battle and these meetings by Shah are necessary to send the message down the ranks. Shah will set the political tone for the booth presidents and boost their morale. The booth-level president also feels charged up that the national president has come to address them,” a BJP leader told ET.

Shah is also expected to dwell on the aspect of the SP-BSP alliance and guide booth-level presidents on how to counter the challenge and spread the message among voters that it is an alliance of “corrupt and casteist forces” while the BJP booth-level president is the “yodha” (warrior) of the party, the BJP leader explained.

The booth-level presidents will also be motivated to ensure good and early turnout of BJP voters on polling day with an aim to hit 50% vote-share -- the lack of which proved to be the undoing of the saffron party in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls.

Before Shah lands in UP, CM Yogi Adityanath, deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, UP in-charge JP Nadda and two co in-charges of UP will be holding meetings in all six regions of the state and prepare a report for Shah on the political preparations of BJP.

SOURCE: ET