While the BJP is confident that the NDA will bag around 300 seats and a comfortable majority in the lok Sabha elections, the party is keeping its door open for prospective allies. “We fought for 272+ seats and we are getting them. Any party which has even a single MP and wants to support us, we will welcome it in national interest,” BJP leader and in-charge of Uttar Pradesh poll Amit Shah told reporters on Tuesday.
Shah’s overture to smaller parties, which could come handy in case the NDA fell short of the 272 mark by a few seats, came a day after the exit polls indicated absolute majority for the BJP-led alliance. Shah himself claimed the NDA would get anywhere between 290 and 305 seats, including 50 to 55 lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
However, Shah dodged a question about the BJP establishing contacts with prospective new allies. Narendra Modi had in recent interviews also said the BJP is open to the support of allies even though it will get a majority of its own.
With the BJP leadership silent on the possible role for veteran leaders lK Advani and MM Joshi in the organisation and the Government, Shah said the party’s Parliamentary Board, the supreme decision-making body, would take a call on it. last week, Joshi flew to Nagpur for a meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.
Seen as the architect of BJP’s revival in UP, Shah said the State was divided in 30 blocks, with each block having a few seats and a different strategy was adopted for each of them.
Modi’s close aide, who was sent specially by the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate to work in Uttar Pradesh, said he had to work a lot to tone up the party’s organisational structure and hoped the party would emerge victorious in 50 to 55 seats.
Predicting a major gain for the BJP in western and eastern Uttar Pradesh, Shah claimed the Bahujan Samaj Party, which has been decimated by many exit polls, will emerge as the second player in the current lok Sabha polls.
As exit polls projected regional parties in power in some States to face a drubbing in the lok Sabha elections, Shah said these parties will lose their authority to rule once the mandate goes against them.
“When they do not get a mandate from the people, they lose the moral authority to rule,” he said, in an apparent reference to Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) in Bihar and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.
On Punjab, where the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal in alliance with BJP is facing anti-incumbency, the BJP leader said the earlier exit polls about the State have been proved wrong and hoped the same this time too.
Asked about the support received by the BJP from RSS volunteers in this lok Sabha election, Shah said, “Not just Sangh, a number of nationalist organisations openly supported the BJP and the party will largely benefit from that.”
While predicting more than 35 seats for BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in Maharashtra, he hoped a good number for the BJP in Bihar as well and said the party’s vote-share in West Bengal is likely to see a major increase but could not confirm if it will translate into seats there.
Asked about Varanasi’s development if Modi won from there and retains the seat, he said the area and the State will see major development. He said the river Ganges was already declared a national river and the Central Government can bring about a lot of development even though the State is ruled by the Samajwadi Party.