In 24x7 mode, BJP president Amit Shah will be moving from State to State and rarely be staying in the national Capital until September.
Shah, who left for lucknow to attend the party’s State Executive meet on Tuesday, would be in Himachal Pradesh from May 3-5 where he would discuss election strategy with the State leaders. The appointment of a new State-in-charge in place of Shrikant Sharma (now a Cabinet Minister in the UP Government) may also figure in during the meeting. Himachal Pradesh goes to poll later this year and the BJP hopes to install its Government in the State beating the anti-incumbency-affected Congress.
Shah will reach Tripura on May 6 and stay there until May 7 and try to impart depth to the BJP’s “look-east strategy” . The BJP is going all out in the left bastion and looking at dethroning the long-serving Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.
BJP has been making deep inroads in the North East. After Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur is the third State where the BJP formed its Government recently and after Prime Minister Narendra Modi scripted a landslide victory in 2014 lok Sabha polls.
BJP witnessed a steep rise in its vote percentage (36 per cent) in Manipur surpassing that of the Congress since the last Assembly polls in 2012.
Thereafter, Shah will be heading south visiting Tamil Nadu from May 10 to 12 and Kerala from May 25 to 26. While the party is trying hard to find its feet in Tamil Nadu, it has already won an Assembly seat and scaled up its political mobilisation in Kerala.
Besides Kerala, BJP is also trying to make inroads in West Bengal where BJP president launched a three-day booth-level programme from Naxalbiari in Siliguri district last week. At a later date, he will be visiting West Bengal again for a three-day stay.
Shah will also visit Odisha, Telangana, lakshdweep, and Gujarat for three days where “he would go twice”.
While he would be undertaking a one-day tour to Chandigarh on May 20, the party chief would visit Maharashtra from June 16 to June 18 and to Punjab from June 28 to June 29.
The 95-day continuous tour around the country would be interrupted by days of stock taking and review of strategies of expansion focusing especially on 120 lok Sabha constituencies where the party has not tasted victory in the past and the “election success” in different States.
According to sources, the party which is in for a major reshuffle would find more articulate, ‘modern and new generation’ spokespe sons who could connect with national and international media at ease.