Ensure party does not lose any of 9 state polls in 2023: Nadda at BJP national executive

New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) BJP president J P Nadda on Monday emphasised the political importance of the nine state assembly polls to be held this year in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and asked senior organisation members from across the country to ensure the party’s victory in all states.

Briefing reporters on Nadda’s address to the BJP national executive, whose two-day meeting began here on Monday, its leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the party president asserted that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has ensured India’s all-round progress as he expressed confidence of the party’s victory prospects in the polls, including the Lok Sabha election.

Nadda exhorted party leaders to make effort effort to ensure that it does not lose in any of the nine state polls, Prasad said.

Nearly 350 leaders from across the country are in the executive, ranging from Modi to Union ministers, chief ministers and other senior members from various states. The prime minister was present through the entire proceedings.

The party has to work to bring it to power in the states where it is in opposition and to make the states, where it is in power, its “impregnable fort”, Nadda said.

Starting from Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, assembly polls are expected to be held in Karnataka followed by Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram in one go and then in Telangana in 2023.

The ruling party has been putting in place a number of exercises to strengthen its organisation to ensure that it comes back to power in 2024 at the Centre for a third term.

In his nearly 45-minute closed-door address, Nadda highlighted the representation to Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the BJP governments in states and the Centre, besides in constitutional positions like governor.

He noted that in President Droupadi Murmu, India has got its first tribal person at the top constitutional post.

“The party is getting votes of the backward classes, SCs and STs and is giving them representation. This shows our resolve of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, and Sabka Prayas,” he said, stressing on the expanding voter base of the party in the last several years since Modi led it to victory in 2014 and then in 2019.

Nadda lauded India’s progress under the Modi government.

It has become the world’s fifth-largest economy, second-largest manufacturer of mobile phones, third-largest manufacturer in the auto sector while the length of highway being built every day has risen to 37 km from 12 km earlier, the party president said.

The country has also worked to empower the poor with a number of welfare schemes, including distribution of free grains, he added.

Nadda praised the party’s win in the recent Gujarat assembly polls as “extraordinary and historic”, saying winning more than 150 seats in the 182-member assembly is a great achievement.

While the party lost in Himachal Pradesh to the Congress, the vote gap between the two parties was less than one per cent, he said.

He called upon state units and other leaders to emulate the Gujarat state unit and Modi’s untiring efforts to strengthen the organisation.

He said India has made rapid strides to fulfil the ‘panch pran’ (five pledges), including freedom from every trace of slavery and feeling proud of the country’s heritage, voiced by the prime minister in his Independence Day speech.

While the Ram temple construction is in full swing, the government has also worked to rejuvenate India’s rich cultural and religious traditions. India’s success in Covid vaccination campaign received applaud globally, he said.

The party has also been working to strengthen itself and reached out to 1.3 lakh booths against the target of 72,000, which it had identified to boost its presence, he said.

The party will also commemorate the 200th birth anniversary of social reformer and Arya Samaj founder Dayananda Saraswati in a big way, he said, asserting Modi has worked following his ideals to empower the most deprived people in society.