‘We will capture south states’: Amit Shah at BJP meeting in Hyderabad

Asserting that the BJP has captured and strengthened its position in the north eastern states, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday, July 3 said that its next focus would be on the southern non-BJP states like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and even Orissa and West Bengal. Speaking on the second day of the party’s National Executive Meeting being held in Hyderabad, the Home Minister said that the BJP will soon put an end to the ‘family rule’ of the TRS and the Trinamool Congress in Telangana and West Bengal respectively and come to power, according to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who briefed the media about the political resolution passed by Shah. The resolution was seconded by Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Biswa.

Referring to the party’s recent victory in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa, Shah said that the BJP had ended politics based on caste, dynasty politics and appeasement politics. “The politics is now spoken on the lines of performance, development and prosperity,” Biswa quoted Shah as saying. Shah further reportedly asserted that the BJP would remain in power for the next 30 years.

One of the crucial subjects discussed while passing the political resolution was the recent Supreme Court verdict, which gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots case based on the Special Investigation Team probe. Shah said that the verdict was ‘historic’ and exposed the alleged conspiracy by certain sections of the media opposed to the ideology of the BJP, NGOs and the Opposition parties who had allegedly colluded against Modi. Presently, two persons — activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat police intelligence chief RB Sreekumar — have been arrested for allegedly fabricating evidence against Modi in the case.

Eulogising Modi, Shah said that for 20 years the Prime Minister struggled like Lord Shiva, who drank poison, and faced insults by appearing before the SIT. “He didn’t enact any drama while appearing before the SIT, unlike others (referring to Rahul Gandhi) facing law enforcement agencies,” Shah reportedly said in the meeting.

In the meeting, PM Modi while being thankful for the opportunity to endorse the candidature of President Ramnath Kovind who belongs to a Dalit community and now Draupadi Murmu who belongs to the Adivasi community, as the President, urged the party members to widely publicise the stories of her background and humble beginnings, Biswa said. Though it is a poll process involving the electoral college, Murmu’s story should be brought into the limelight, the PM reportedly said.

Shah said that the BJP would soon form the government in both Telangana and West Bengal.