Poll din: Shah to shore up success strategy

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 28

Riding high on the success of Modi rally in Shimla, the BJP has already started making preparations to accord a red carpet welcome to its national president Amit Shah.

Shah will hold brainstorming sessions with the top state leadership and the entire organisational structure, including the ones holding seven morchas in Palampur, on May 3 and 4.

Shah will spend two days at Nagri near Palampur to get a feedback from the rank and file of the party, including MLAs, MPs and state office-bearers. The visit is being considered important as he is likely to chalk out the blueprint for the BJP’s comeback in Himachal, with the Assembly poll barely six months away.

As of now, Shah will not be addressing any public meeting during his visit and will confine himself to having a close interaction with the workers. Interestingly, the BJP is planning to arrange an interaction of the party chief with about 300 intellectuals drawn from various sections of society. This is being done with the objective to rope in people from every field and get to know from them what a common voter expects from his representative.

“A closed-door interaction will be held by Shah with all MLAs, MPs, party office-bearers and those running the seven morchas,” said Satpal Singh Satti, BJP state president. He said Shah was keen to interact with the intellectual class from various fields and about 300 such persons would be invited on May 4 to Nagri.The seven party cells with whom Shah will interact includes the Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha, BJP Mahila Morcha, minorities cell, Scheduled Castes cell, Scheduled Tribes cell and the Other Backward Classes cell. “As Gujarat and Himachal are likely to go to polls together, Shah is keen to gear up the party cadres in Himachal now as later he may have to devote more time to Gujarat,” remarked a BJP legislator. The fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi targeted Virbhadra even though he did not name him and Union Health and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda did not mince words in hitting out at the Chief Minister on the issue of corruption is a clear indicator that they will make corruption a major poll plank.

Modi’s rally here yesterday has virtually kick-started the BJP’s campaign for the Shimla Municipal Corporation poll and enthused party workers are keen that the BJP gains control of the prestigious MC, which will go to polls in May 2017.

Brainstorming sessions on list

• BJP national president Amit Shah will spend two days at Nagri near Palampur to get a feedback from the rank and file of the party, including MLAs, MPs and state office-bearers
• As Gujarat and Himachal are likely to go to polls together, Shah is keen to gear up the party cadres in Himachal now as later he may have to devote more time to Gujarat