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BJP National President Shri Amit Shah said the BJP will come back with a bigger majority than in 2014. “Elections are quite far off but I can assure you that we, both NDA and BJP, will get more seats than what we got in 2014 and return to form the government in 2019”. In his interview to the Times Now on 22 March, 2018 Shri Shah said while the party has taken the recent setbacks seriously and is analyzing the reasons, but the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, both in UP and the country will be good for us.
He rejected the suggestion that Rahul’s aggression at the Congress convention where he launched a personal attack on the Prime Minister marked the beginning of new phase. “I don’t believe the Congress president can bring about a change in political phases. One political phase has already been decided in the country. This country has moved away from the politics of caste, nepotism and appeasement. Now, politics of performance has begun under the leadership of PM Shri Narendra Modi. Now, no matter what the Congress president says, this phase cannot be changed.”
He said PM Shri Narendra Modi will stick to Varanasi as his Lok Sabha constituency. “Yes he will contest from Varanasi. There is no question of fighting from any other place, and let me tell you we will come back with the same majority,” he said. The BJP President said the party will not be affected by TDP’s recent exit from NDA. He stressed that going it alone might help BJP in some states, saying, “Maybe we are becoming bigger there.”
He said there is a big difference in the values of BJP and Congress. As far as BJP is concerned, opportunism doesn’t drive our alliances like Congress.
Answering, how to tackle the SP & BSP alliance challenge in UP, Shri Shah said the party has enough time to prepare for the challenge. He said, “The Modi government launched several schemes ranging from provision of free LPG connections to construction of toilets and reaching electricity to unlit villages, and they have benefited millions of people. The public support is with us, so we can overcome any challenge,” Shri Shah added. On Rahul Gandhi’s repeated jibes at PM Shri Modi, Shri Amit Shah said, “Rahul’s speech may form an impression on a few journalists, but not on the public. People understand everything. The opposition has not been able to make any charge against the Modi government. Can Rahul Gandhi prove the involvement of even a single minister of the BJP government in any scam? During UPA, the courts, the CAG came out with their observations.”
Commenting on Rahul’s performance after assuming leadership of Congress, Shri Amit Shah said, “After becoming party president there were elections in five states — Gujarat, Himachal, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, Everywhere they have suffered huge defeats. He seems happy about bypolls, but what is the position of this party? Phulpur, deposit lost; Gorakhpur, deposit lost; Bihar, Congress fought one seat and lost it.”
Shri Shah said Karnataka government’s move to provide separate religion status to Lingayats would boomerang on Congress in the assembly elections in the state. “People of Karnataka see through all this. If they really had to accord that status to Lingayats, why didn’t they do it earlier when they were in power? The UPA had rejected it.”