Amit Shah tells party: Get aggressive to counter Opposition

New Delhi: With the polls approaching, the BJP has decided to get more aggressive and wants the 2019 general election to be “personality-based”. Sensing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains the main vote-catcher for the BJP, the party has asked its spokespersons to build the campaign around him. BJP leaders also feel the party is falling into the “trap” set by the Congress and limiting itself to replying to the Congress’ charges and allegations. On the Rafale deal and fuel price hikes, they feel the party spokespersons are not being able to defend the government and want them to get more aggressive.

On Sunday, BJP president Amit Shah and other senior leaders, including Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Piyush Goyal and Prakash Javadekar, interacted with over 150 party spokespersons and heads of media departments to discuss the media strategy for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Sources said Mr Shah asked the spokespersons to build up a narrative for a personality-based campaign for the general election. “Mr Shah told us surveys and opinion polls indicate the NDA will bag nearly a 52 per cent voteshare, but over 70 per cent of respondents prefer Mr Modi as Prime Minister,” one of them said. On the basis of the surveys, the BJP chief made it clear the focus has to be “Modi vs Others”.

Mr Shah is, however, confident the BJP will return to power “with a huge majority” and told party leaders that “there is nothing to be afraid of”. As the party was asked to build up a “personality-based” campaign, they were told to “expose” Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s “blunders and lies”. Mr Shah gave the example of Mr Gandhi’s reported remark that he would instal a machine that “if fed a potato, will give gold in return”, which had gone viral on the social media last year.

It was further learnt that both Mr Shah and Arun Jaitley were not pleased with the defence put up by the party’s spokespersons on the Opposition attacks, particularly on the Rafale and fuel hike issues. Both leaders wanted the spokespersons to be more aggressive and study the “finer points of the (Rafale) deal, that was clarified by defence minister Nirmala Sitaraman and IAF chief B.S. Dhanoa”.

Mr Jaitley also came down strongly on party leaders for not being able to present a strong defence on rising fuel prices and the Rs 2.50 cut by the government last week.