BJP will cross the 300-mark in UP this time, says Amit Shah

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 28

Expressing confidence that the BJP will cross the 300 mark in the 2022 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday launched ‘Mera Parivaar- BJP Parivaar’ membership drive from Lucknow.

“Without UP there cannot be a government at the Centre and the credit of the Narendra Modi governments in 2014 and 2019 goes completely to people of UP,” Shah said.

“If you want to make Modi PM again in 2024, make Yogi the CM again in 2022. We will make UP number one state”, he promised while launching the special membership drive.

“There should be a ‘toran’ with the slogan on every house,” he told cadres, also telling them to ask people their problems and expectations from the Modi-Yogi governments.

“The party’s manifesto will be prepared on the feedback you bring from people,” Shah told party leaders and cadres. He also “promised” people that the BJP would fulfill all the commitments in UP.

Claiming that the BJP government had fulfilled 90 per cent of promises made in the 2017 manifesto, Shah said the remaining 10 per cent would also be completed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the next two months.

Amid speculations of differences between the two, Shah praised Adityanath for law and order in the state saying that ‘palayan’ had stopped completely and now there are no ‘bahubalis’ in the state. “The biggest work that Yogi Adityanath has done is getting rid of mafias,” he said.

Listing the welfare works by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and the Adityanath government in the state, Shah expressed confidence that the BJP would cross the mark of 300 seats in 2022 and Adityanath would return to power.

Invoking the Ram Mandir, Shah asked, “Did anyone even imagine there will be a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya” and reminded Samajwadi leader Akhilesh Yadav of his jibe, ‘Mandir wahin baneyenge, tithi nahi batayenge’.

Slamming the Samajwadi Party and BSP as “barsati” politicians, he called them “family-based parties which think only of themselves”.

He also flagged off the campaign vehicles to various districts.

The senior BJP leader is in UP to review the party’s strategy in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Assembly elections next year.

Shah is expected to hold separate meetings with Adityanath, key state leaders and office-bearers on election preparations and other issues.

The BJP currently has 312 seats in the 403-member UP Assembly.