Modi to address BJP leaders on May 17

Following the energy sapping  poll campaigning in Karnataka , Prime Minister Narendra Modi  is expected to undertake a stock-taking exercise with party leaders and national executive members on  May 17  here  on the party’s preparedness ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Modi will address national executive members of the BJP in what would be the first such meeting and is seen as aimed at toning up the party’s organisational machinery in the run up to the General Elections.

The day-long exercise is scheduled to be held two days after the announcement of results of Karnataka assembly polls on May 15.

 Office bearers of  party’s wings  relating to  scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, women, youth, farmers, minorities and other backward classes will attend the meeting which BJP president Amit Shah will also address. Party sources said this would be for the first time that all wings of the party will sit under one roof and will be addressed by Modi and Shah.

The meeting would seek to  set the agenda to project the government’s face of development and communicate ‘ successful implementation’ of  ‘pro-poor’  and ‘pro-farmer’ schemes and policies in over last four years. It would also discuss strategy  to galvanize party machinery to win Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

After  handling a series of assembly polls, the latest being the Karnataka one, Prime Minister, ministers and party leaders would again be consumed  with the task of retaining  ground in BJP ruled states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh (along with Mizoram) which would go to polls in the year end.  Close to these polls, there would  be a rapid countdown  to  the Lok Sabha polls. 

On May 28, BJP also faces four Lok Sabha bypolls including one in Kairana in Western Uttar Pradesh where it has the arduous task of retaining it as it faces the might of a joint opposition candidate backed by the BSP, SP and RLD. BJP, which is currently sitting pretty in 73 Lok Sabha  seats,  including two from the   NDA allies,  out of 80 ,  need to prove that  it could hold on to its 2014 vote bank against the combined electoral  strength of the SP-BSP which has already handed down shock defeats to the BJP in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypoll in March, this year.

Speculation is rife that the general  elections could also be announced ahead of its scheduled time, next year.