BJP hopes to win 300 seats in Lok Sabha polls: Amit Shah

AGARTALA: BJP is expecting to win 300 seats, including 21 from the northeast and 23 from West Bengal, in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, its national president Amit Shah said here on Saturday while addressing a gathering of page observers (panna pramukhs).

Criticising the proposed ‘grand alliance’ of Congress ahead of the general elections, Shah later told reporters, “Na neta hain na niti hein… Sarkar banana toh dur ki baat hein. (There is no leader, no ideology… forming the government is a distant dream) for the so-called alliance”.

“Today, BJP and its partners is in power in six states in northeast. Congress and the Communists have been uprooted from the northeast because the Modi government prioritized the core issues of the region in the last five years,” he said.

He said against the recommendation of devolution of funds of Rs 7,000 crore by the 14th Finance Commission, the Modi government has given about Rs 25,000 crore only to Tripura in the last five years. There are as many as 129 schemes and projects running successfully in the state, the BJP national president added.

Without naming West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Shah told the media later that people of Bengal are fed up with the Congress, Communists and Trinamool Congress. The law and order situation in Bengal is getting worse and BJP has emerged as an alternative.

Showering praises on the BJP-IPFT government in Tripura, Shah said reconstruction work of the state has only begun now. “We’ve (state government) taken action against fake ration cards and pension claimers. Around 62,340 ration cards were cancelled to prevent unnecessary leakage of public funds. We’ve taken stringent actions to control the rapid menace of alcohol in the state. And in just a year, 34,000 Ujjwala connections have been increased to 2.34 lakh, which reflects our commitment towards development,” he added.