Want two-thirds majority in 3 states: Amit Shah

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah has given party leaders a target of securing a two-thirds majority in the upcoming Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand Assembly polls while the Delhi unit has been tasked with dislodging the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party in the national capital.

The Assembly polls in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand are scheduled to be held later this year while in Delhi it is likely early next year.

 The meeting, Mr chaired by Shah, was also attended by BJP working president J.P. Nadda and its general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh. Other people present at the meeting inc-luded Union ministers Pr-akash Javadekar and Nar-endra Singh Tomar, who are the BJP’s election in-charges for Delhi and Har-yana respectively. Nati-onal general secretary Bh-upender Yadav and vice-president Om Mathur, who are in charge of Maharas-htra and Jharkhand respectively, were also present at the meeting.

After the historic Lok Sabha victory of the Narendra Modi-led campaign, winning these states is also being considered crucial for the party which wants to send out a strong message to the Opposition by retaining power in these states with a two-thirds majority.  The Central government’s recent decisions on abrogation of Article 370 and 35A along with the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir is also expected to further consolidate the nationalist vote and the BJP is hoping that it gains massively in the forthcoming Assembly polls and improve upon its 2014 showing in all these states.

Sources stated that the state units have been assigned key responsibilities for Assembly polls in these states as they took stock of election preparedness and deliberated over strategy to bring back their incumbent governments with a thumping majority.

The party has already decided to play on the two-pronged strategy of going into the polls with the strong leadership of Mr Modi and clean image of incumbent chief ministers in all three states being used to seek votes in the forthcoming polls. The party has Devendra Fadnavis, Manohar Lal Khattar and Raghubar Das as chief ministers in Maharastra, Haryana and Jharkhand, who are seeking reelection.  While in Delhi the party has decided to play on the strategy of incomplete promises by the incumbent AAP
government.

Sources said that in Tuesday’s meeting the BJP chief also asked the state leadership to be careful while inducting new entrants from Opposition parties this close to the polls.  Sources said state leadership has been advised to “evaluate” properly the leaders who want to join the BJP from rival parties.