Build BJP campaign around development, pro-poor policies: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asked BJP members to build the party's Lok Sabha poll campaign around its pro-poor work and the country's development and enhanced standing globally, asserting that winning 370 seats will be a true tribute to its key ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee. Mookerjee was a strident opponent of Article 370, which granted Jammu and Kashmir special rights. The Modi government scrapped the article in August 2019.Addressing a meeting of the BJP's national office-bearers ahead of the start of the party's convention in New Delhi, he said every booth worker should now focus on polling booths and ensure at least 370 more votes for the party at each in the upcoming polls than in 2019.
Briefing reporters on Modi's speech, BJP General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the prime minister told the meeting that the opposition will raise "unnecessary and emotional issues" during the polls but party members should stick to the issues of development, pro-poor policies and the country's rising global standing. Tawde said the party will launch a campaign to reach out to beneficiaries of various central government schemes from February 25.Modi noted he has been the head of a government, including more than 12 years as Gujarat chief minister, for nearly 23 years and there has been no allegation of corruption. "It's been an 'aarop mukt' and a 'vikas yukt' period," he said in his briefing, noting that there has been no such instance of such a long tenure of anyone not drawing any taint.Union home and cooperation minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other senior leaders also arrived for the convention.

In his address,BJP president J P Nadda underlined the party's meteoric rise since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office and lauded his leadership in the past decade that has been full of new achievements for the organisation.The Modi government will score a hat-trick and retain power for a third straight term after the Lok Sabha polls, expected in April-May, he told nearly 11,500 party delegates for the two-day national convention."We have to cross 370 seats and the NDA has to cross 400," he said in his inaugural address, exhorting party members to put all their energy in achieving the target so that the party breaks its previous records.