BJP's two-day national council meeting begins today

BJP’s two-day national council meeting begins today

New Delhi, Feb 17 (PTI) A two-day meeting of nearly 11,500 BJP delegates drawn from across the country begins here on Saturday, as the party’s top brass led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets set to outline its campaign themes for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

From its elected panchayat heads to district presidents and Union ministers, the BJP’s ‘national council’ meeting is going to be the ruling party’s biggest organisational get-together in recent memory — an exercise aimed at galvanising its cadre for the polls.

The meet — scheduled to start in the afternoon — will be preceded by a meeting of the party’s national office-bearers, who will finalise some of the key agenda items for the convention.

BJP chief JP Nadda will inaugurate the meeting and Modi will on Sunday deliver the valedictory address, a speech that is likely to draw the broader contours of the party’s campaign and exhort its members to go all out to achieve his target for the party to win 370 seats in the elections.

The meeting, which is being held at Bharat Mandapam, will also see the attendance of chief ministers, state ministers, BJP state unit presidents and its organisational leaders from across the country.

Representatives of the party’s district bodies and ‘morchas’ from across the country will also attend the mega meeting.

In the national council meetings held in the last 10 years, including the two organised in the national capital weeks before the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the attendance had generally remained around 3,000.

Senior party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad has said two resolutions are likely to be passed by the council.

Generally, one resolution highlights the prevailing political atmosphere and the party’s stand on germane issues while another is underpinned by the state of the economy.

The recent white paper on the economy tabled in Parliament by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the perceived disarray in the opposition INDIA bloc, the successful G20 Summit in 2023, and the country’s global standing are among the issues that are likely to figure in the speeches of key BJP leaders at the meeting and in the resolutions.

The outcomes of the Modi government’s welfare initiatives, besides the prime minister’s focus on empowering what he has often describes as the four biggest “castes” of women, youth, poor and farmers may also be discussed, party leaders said.

Political watchers will also keep an eye on whether the ruling party touches on the issue of electoral bonds, which have been struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional and seized by opposition parties to mount an attack on the BJP, and the ongoing protests by farmers, mostly from Punjab.

Prasad noted that the BJP won its maiden majority in the Lok Sabha in the 2014 polls and delivered a bigger win in 2019 following the council meetings held before the two elections, exuding confidence that the convention this time will put it on course to win 370 seats in the 543-member House.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance will also cross 400 seats, as asserted by Modi, he added.