Amit Shah to Set LS Poll Agenda in TS

Hyderabad: The expected arrival of Union home minister Amit Shah in the city on Thursday created a buzz among the BJP cadre, who are hoping to better their performance in the ensuing parliamentary elections, with the minister’s arrival assuming increased significance given he has been made the Telangana incharge for the upcoming polls.

The Union minister, expected to arrive at the Shamshabad airport around noon, will begin his visit with a visit to the Bhagyalakshmi temple in the Old City, party sources said.

The senior BJP leader, a key strategist of the party, was in West Bengal on Tuesday along with BJP president J.P. Nadda, as they held organisational meetings and set a target of winning 35 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the eastern state ruled by the Trinamul Congress. The BJP had won 18 seats in 2019.

In Telangana state, it had won four of the 17 seats in the 2019 polls, but its hopes to emerge as a strong force received a setback in the recent Assembly polls as the Congress wrested power from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.

Telangana BJP chief G. Kishan Reddy, in an interaction on Tuesday, had said that party chief J.P. Nadda, Union minister Amit Shah and senior leader B.L. Santosh were made incharges of multiple states for the polls.

The Thursday meeting will take place at the Sloka Function Hall in Kongara Kalan, beginning with a meeting of candidates who had contested the Assembly polls, including the newly elected MLAs.

The meeting with have in attendance mandal/division presidents, Assembly convenors and joint convenors, Assembly incharges, Parliament convenors and joint convenors, Parliament incharges, BJP state office-bearers, spokespersons, national leaders, district presidents, district general secretaries, district incharges, national council members, state council members, seven morchas state office-bearers (up to office secretary level), NEC members, former MPs and MLAs, and Assembly poll candidates.

Organisational issues like the formation of mandal-level committees and polling-booth committees will be addressed by Sunil Bansal and Tarun Chugh in the first session. In the next session, Amit Shah will speak on the road map for the Parliamentary elections. Shah will leave for Delhi by 6 pm from the RGI Airport on the same day.  

Senior leaders in the state, including Kishan Reddy and Dr K. Laxman, among others, on Wednesday discussed the visit, as well as the implementation of the Viksit Bharat programme. They decided to extend help for the programme, which is travelling through the villages, and see that services are made available to people. They also decided to keep a watch on Praja Palana and the failures of the Congress government, said Amarnath Sarangula, party spokesperson.