Amit Shah insists BJP will retain three states

New Delhi: A day after most exit polls predicted the BJP may lose its grip over three key states in the Hindi heartland and the Congress is likely to gain extensively ahead of the 2019 electoral battle, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday asserted that the party will retain power in all three states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

At an event in the evening, Mr Shah was asked about the findings of exit polls showing a dip in BJP’s performance in the three states but he disagreed with the predictions and said, “The BJP will retain power in these states.”

Mr Shah also hit out at Opposition parties’ attempts to form a grand alliance as a “sham” and said in the next parliamentary elections people will have to decide whether they want “strong” or the “helpless” government.

“Politics is not physics where two plus two becomes four, it is chemistry. The grand alliance is nothing but a sham. Perhaps only in Uttar Pradesh the grand alliance between SP and BSP could pose some challenge for the party. The BJP had got more than 40 per cent vote share in the state and will fight for more than 51 per cent vote share in the next general elections,” he said

Mr Shah earlier held a crucial meeting with party’s national general secretaries to deliberate on party’s own feedback from the ground from the five states that went to polls over the last one month.

Results of the Assembly polls of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Telangana will be declared on December 11.

The BJP, sources said, has also called a meeting of its national office bearers on December 13 to dissect the poll results and to strategise for the Lok Sabha polls.

In Telangana, the exit polls suggested that the K. Chandrasekhar Rao-led TRS may sail through while in Mizoram the predictions favoured Mizo National Front (MNF) over the Congress, which has been ruling the northeastern state for a decade.

In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the BJP has been ruling since 2003 and has been confident of forming the government for the fourth time in a row.

Sources disclosed, in case the poll predictions comes true, especially in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, its impact could be drastic for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls and the saffron poll managers would be forced to restrategise its electoral tactics.

In Rajasthan, the saffron party’s poll managers had been strategising to negate the electoral jinx of the state preferring the BJP and the Congress alternately.

BJP stalwart Vasundhara Raje is the chief minister in the outgoing assembly in the desert state but the opposition Congress is confident that the state prefers it after the “misrule” of the Raje government.