Maharashtra: Shah, BJP leaders discuss going it alone in LS polls

Amit Shah BJP president Amit Shah arriving for a party meeting in Mumbai | PTI

In a possible signal to the Shiv Sena, a meeting between BJP chief Amit Shah and senior party leaders in Mumbai on Sunday discussed the possibility of the saffron party going it alone in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Shah who landed in the city on Sunday afternoon, spent the entire day at the BJP headquarters of 'Vasant Smruti' in south-central Mumbai. Shah laid down a 23-point working strategy and discussed issues such as increasing the party strength and addressing new voters' groups based on their profession and gender.

"The national president plainly stated that the strategy has to be implemented in all the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in the state. At present, the BJP shares its political space with the Shiv Sena and a couple of smaller allies. It is a message that says 'prepare for contesting elections alone'. We will have to rush as the general elections are now less than a year away," said a senior BJP minister who attended the meeting with Shah.

Apart from meeting the 'vistaraks' of the party whose mandate is to increase the network of the BJP in different geographies, Shah also interacted with the members of the 'Lok Sabha Toli', a group that consists of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, state unit chief Raosaheb Danve, Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and ministers Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil and Pankaja Munde and Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar.

"The mandate of the group is to identify weaknesses of the party in certain areas, (ways) to overcome them and the current key issues related to the people of Maharashtra. The candidates who had contested and won the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the current image of the candidates in the same constituency was also discussed at the general level in this meeting," the BJP official said.

He said the BJP was also mulling over holding some events with a view to demonstrate its strength and communicate with the people. "It could be in the form of discussions, holding bike rallies as well as some innovative ways of reaching out to certain groups of people," the official said, without elaborating.

After attending the meetings, Shah met melody queen Lata Mangeshkar at her home in south Mumbai as part of the party's "contact for support" campaign.

The BJP chief was scheduled to meet Mangeshkar on June 6, but the visit was cancelled as she was down with food poisoning.

Shah was accompanied by Fadnavis, Danve and Shelar to Mangeshkar's house.