The National Council meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) began here at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on February 17.
The two-day meeting, expected to see 11,500 BJP delegates in attendance from across the country was inaugurated with the address by party’s national president JP Nadda in the afternoon on the first day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was present on the first day, is also scheduled to address the valedictory session of the meeting on February 18.
The deliberations in the two days will see BJP outline its campaign themes ahead of Lok Sabha elections scheduled in April-May. The meeting is attended by party’s representatives from panchayats to Parliament. Chief ministers, state ministers, BJP state unit presidents and its organisational leaders from across the country are in attendance.
The exercise is billed as saffron party’s biggest organisational assembly in recent past aimed at boosting the cadre in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls. This will be last big meeting of the party before the parliamentary elections and hence sets the tone for the party’s campaign. Two such meetings of national council, the party’s highest decision-making body, were held in the national capital before the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The attendance was however not more than 3000.
Senior party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad told news agency PTI that the council was likely to pass two resolutions: One that highlighting the prevailing political atmosphere and the other about the party’s position on the economy. Apart from the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the other big talking points during the meeting are the recent white paper on the UPA government tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the INDIA bloc of Opposition parties, the successful G20 summit in 2023, and the country’s global standing.
Prime Minister Modi has already exuded confidence about the BJP winning more than 370 seats and the NDA crossing the 400 mark. He has said, in his recent Parliament speeches during the Budget Session, that the BJP’s “third tenure” will lay a strong foundation for “progress in the next 1,000 years”.
BJP won 282 seats in 2014 elections and extended its lead by 21 seats to 303 in 2019 elections. Thus to achieve Modi’s target of 370 seats this time, the BJP will need to win 67 more seats. The party is already reaching out to its old alliance partners and has already brought over the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) and Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) in the NDA fold.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Published: 17 Feb 2024, 11:46 AM IST