Amit Shah meets Gen Suhag as part of pre-poll campaign

NEW DELHI: BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday called on Gen Dalbir Suhag (retd), who was the Army chief during the 2016 cross-LoC surgical strikes, as part of the party’s ‘Sampark For Samarthan’ campaign to reach out to over 1 lakh prominent citizens to seek mandate in the 2019 general elections on the Modi government’s performance.

Besides Gen Suhag, Shah also met constitutional expert Subhash Kashyap for the campaign for which he is likely to meet nearly 50 opinion makers till June 11. Shah handed a few booklets to Gen Suhag and Kashyap on the Modi government’s achievements. “The aim of this programme is to inform the people about how BJP has worked for every section of society and touched their lives,” said Shah after meeting the two prominent citizens.

He said BJP had touched lives of the poor by taking government schemes to the rural areas in the last four years. “In the fifth year of this government, BJP will increase farmers’ income and provide health insurance worth Rs 5 lakh to 50 crore households,” he said.

Shah was scheduled to launch the contact programme from Suhag’s Gurugram-located house in Haryana, but that was cancelled at the last minute. “As part of the campaign, party activists and boothlevel workers will take part in the initiative. Each ‘karyakarta’ will contact at least 10 persons,” BJP national media chief and Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni said.

More than 4,000 BJP members including ministers, chief ministers and office-bearers will call on over 1lakh opinion makers. As part of another campaign, over 50 lakh workers will reach out to households at booth level. The party wants to reach out to almost every household before the launch of the 2019 poll campaign.