In a bid to ensure that it retains all the 26 seats that it won in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Gujarat BJP on Wednesday set the ball rolling for the crucial 2019 Parliamentary elections.
At a meeting held at “Shree Kamalam”, party's headquarters in Gandhinagar, an eleven-member election co-ordination committee was formed. The committee includes Union ministers and senior ministers from Gujarat.
Chief minister Vijay Rupani, Gujarat state party president Jitubhai Vaghani and state party organisational general secretary Bhikhubhai Dalsania are also in the committee apart from 11 members.
The 2019 elections are crucial for the saffron party for it cannot afford to decrease its tally from the states that are its strongholds.
Though the opposition Congress drew a blank in the Parliamentary elections in 2014, the mood of its rank and file is upbeat following a good performance in the assembly elections held in 2017. The Congress could not succeed in preventing the ruling BJP from retaining power, but it improved its performance considerably and restricted BJP to 99 seats. The saffron party managed to form the government with a slender majority.
BJP national general secretary Dr Anil Jain expressed confidence that the party would win all the 26 seats. The BJP leaders said that nobody could beat the party's management up to the booth level and that it was its strength.
A series of meetings were held in Gandhinagar. The party leaders also planned for programmes to be held during party national president Amit Shah's forthcoming visit to Gujarat. Shah is to visit Gujarat as part of his nation-wide tour of different states. The dates, however, have not been announced.