THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the debacle in the Hindi heartland, the BJP is expected to give thrust to the southern states as each seat is vital for the saffron party to retain power.
Its indefinite fast before the Secretariat is running out of steam and the state leaders are now trying to bring national president Amit Shah to Sabarimala to infuse vigour.
Mr Shah has called a meeting of all national office bearers, state presidents and organising general secretaries in New Delhi on Thursday to take stock of dwindling fortunes.He is expected to brief them the strategy to be adopted in each state in the runup to the Lok Sabha elections.
Accordingly, BJP State president P. S. Sreedharan Pillai, national executive member P. K. Krishnadas and organising general secretary M. Ganesh will be attending the meeting to discuss his 'Conquer South' mission.
He had informed them that funding is not a big issue and what he wanted is results. The state leaders are not so hopeful of him making it to Sabarimala after drawing a blank in the elections in five states dubbed as semi-finals.
Mr Pillai and his team hope to convince him of the political significance of a visit to Sabarimala. They are to discuss on the next course of action on the fast by C. K. Padmanabhan with no end in sight.
"It is true that since the last two days the steam has been lost and the attention turned to the electoral setbacks. We hope to bring Mr Shah to Sabarimala before Jan 20 when the Mandala Pooja - Makaravilakku season ends," said a senior leader.
Mr Shah and general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao are not happy with Mr Pillai's handling of Sabarimala issue. He failed to cash in on the temper.
The RSS is also at odds with him for not keeping them informed about the decision to shift the protest venue to the state capital. A top RSS source confirmed to DC that he informed them about state general secretary A. N. Radhakrishnan's indefinite fast only later, not taking them into confidence.
