Chennai: Seeking to mollify sulking allies and trigger enthusiasm within the saffron brigade, BJP president Amit Shah on Monday promised ‘respect’ to the existing partners while pledging serious efforts towards expanding the NDA with “new friends” ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.
“We will give respect to our existing allies and bring in new friends before the Lok Sabha elections and give the nation a clean government,” he told a meeting of around 15,000 members of the Sakthi and Maha Sakthi Kendras of the BJP at the VGP Golden Beach on Chennai outskirts.
While a Sakthi Kendra in-charge is vested with the responsibility of overseeing the party work of five booth level functionaries, a Maha Sakthi Kendra office-bearer is the overseer for five Sakthi Kendra functionaries. Shah, under whose stewardship the BJP has scripted victories in many state assembly elections after the party came to power at the Centre in 2014, said he would announce its new partners in Tamil Nadu before the LS poll.
In Tamil Nadu, where the party is looking for allies to broaden its support base after winning just one seat in 2014, Shah invoked Tamil pride, insisting no other party was as committed to preserving it as the BJP.
"Will you strengthen the booth committees? Will you work to form the Modi government again and prepare TN for NDA rule? Then raise both your hands and say Bharat Mata ki jai," he urged and the crowd responded by repeating the thunderous slogan.
The BJP national chief, who had put off his visit to Chennai twice in the past, finally made it on Monday, to gear up the TN unit for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Shah, who arrived to a rousing reception by the saffron party leaders and cadres at the Chennai airport, met the Maha Sakthi Kendra office-bearer of TN, Puducherry and Andamans at the VGP golden beach resort, near Chennai, during his one-day trip.
At the airport, Amit Shah was accorded a rousing reception by the BJP members led by state unit president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, Union minister of state for finance and shipping Pon Radhakrishnan, Coir Board chairman C. P. Radhakrishnan, national secretary H. Raja and others. Party cadres thronged in large numbers as Shah waved the victory symbol.
From the airport, he drove straight to the VGP golden beach resort, where he had a series of meetings with the senior party leaders, members of the Sakthi and Maha Sakthi Kendra. Mr Shah also met the administrative committee of the party constituted for the next year's Lok Sabha poll in the state, besides had an interaction with the party in-charges in each of the 40 Lok Sabha seats (39 in TN and lone seat in neighbouring Puducherry) to prepare them for the elections. Mr Amit Shah's visit was long overdue. His visit to the state was postponed a couple of times for some reason.
