The three-day National Council meet of the BJP began in the northern Kerala city of Kozhikode on Friday with two sessions on deciding the agenda of the conference and finalising the resolution which is likely to be hogged by the response to the Uri terror attack.
On Friday morning, BJP president Amit Shah, who had arrived in Kozhikode on Thursday, chaired a meeting of the party general secretaries. Another meeting of party’s State chiefs, national office-bearers and national leaders in-charge of States was held in the afternoon in order to give final shape to the party’s pro-poor agenda and the strategy to deal with and isolate Pakistan globally for its role in the Uri terror strike.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be arriving in Kozhikode for the meet on Saturday afternoon and will address a public rally on the Kozhikode beach in the evening, his first such address after the Uri attack. leaders said over 5,00,000 people from the six districts of northern Kerala will participate in the meeting.
According to leaders, party ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s concept of Antyodaya (uplift of all, up to the last man) will be the key to the deliberations at the meet, which will also see discussions on the Uri attack that had left 18 Indian soldiers dead, the worsening Kashmir situation and the issue of the State Assembly elections to be held next year.
The meet is being held in Kozhikode on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the 1967 national conclave of the Jan Sangh in the same city at which Upadhyaya was elected its president. The meet also coincides with the start of Upadhyaya’s birth centenary celebrations and Modi will inaugurate the year-long celebrations at the national council meet venue on Sunday evening.
It became clear on Friday that the national council meeting, the actual proceedings of which begin on Sunday morning, will discuss in detail the Uri attack, the issue of import of terror into India from Pakistan, the position to be taken on that country and the Kashmir situation. Also, these issues are most likely to form parts of the resolution to be adopted by the meet.
“The world wanted us to take an initiative on Pakistan and we have done that. That is why several countries are standing by us and are offering support to us… Pakistan cannot be trusted and it stands exposed,” said BJP spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain while general secretary Ram Madhav said, “Action will take place and it is taking place” in response to the Uri attack.
Prime Minister Modi will address the national council meeting on Sunday morning and will attend the meet till its conclusion in the evening. On Saturday evening, he and party chief Shah will attend Smriti Sandhya, an event associated with the meeting at which surviving participants of the Jan Sangh’s 1967 conference in Kozhikode will be honoured.
The meet may spell out its Garib Kalyan (Welfare of the Poor) agenda to reach out to Dalits and backward classes people in preparation for the crucial 2017 State Assembly elections. leaders are of the feeling that effective implementation of the agenda can help the party reach out to the marginalised sections as it is facing criticisms from Opposition parties over Dalit issues.
Amit Shah told the party functionaries at the meeting on Friday that even the top leaders had to go out on the field and work hard to achieve the party’s objectives. Even senior leaders would have to work at booth levels in order to take to the people the message of the achievements the NDA Government at the Centre, he said.
Meanwhile, a festival mood prevailed in Kozhikode as BJP workers and sympathisers roamed around the city as it remained wrapped in saffron with 1,10,000 BJP flags decorating its streets and grounds for the biggest ever political leadership meeting in the entire history of Kerala.
BCCI chief and BJP MP Anurag Thakur who was here to attend the BJP National Council meet, ruled out the possibility of reviving bilateral cricket matches with Pakistan in near future, saying the question does not arise to play against Pakistan in the backdrop of Uri terror attack.
Thakur, who is also president of BJP youth wing, struck a combative note, saying India every Indian wants that the Indian Government must expose Pakistan at the international level. “India has succeeded in sidelining and exposing Pakistan at the international level. In my recent tour to USA, I have seen a shift in the thinking of senators and Congressmen who have very openly raised the issue of terrorism as a global threat today,” he said.
Thakur also said, “The world will have a better understanding on what India had gone through in the last so many years. That is why globally we are getting all the support thanks to leadership of Modiji who has been accepted as a global leader today. In the last two years, our foreign policy and the PM’s stature is helping India in exposing and sidelining Pakistan,” he added.