The Bharatiya Janata Party has deferred its internal polls to select a new leader, and decided to fight the 2019 General Elections campaign under national president Amit Shah, NDTV reported on Saturday. Shah’s term ends in January.

On Saturday, the saffron party began its two-day national executive meeting in New Delhi to decide the strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. At the event, Shah claimed that the BJP will return to power in 2019 with a bigger mandate. “BJP has the most popular leaders in the country,” he said. “We should win with even more seats than the previous election.”

Advertisement

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani were among those who attended the meeting, ANI reported.

The slogan ‘Ajey BJP’ (Invincible BJP) was adopted at the meeting. Shah told the attendees to work for the party’s victory in upcoming Assembly polls in Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

Shah said that the 2019 elections will be contested based on the “achievements” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the strength of the BJP’s organisation, the Hindustan Times reported quoting Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Advertisement

Shah blamed the “hypocritical attitude” of the Congress for the government’s failure to pass the triple talaq bill, which is stuck in the Rajya Sabha, Sitharaman added. She also claimed, quoting Shah, that a “grand alliance” between the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress in Uttar Pradesh will not be able to defeat the BJP.

Sitharaman said Shah attacked the Opposition for introducing a no-confidence motion in Parliament though the government enjoys a majority. She claimed that while the BJP was in the process of “making India”, the Congress was involved in “breaking India”.

Elections for 543 seats in the Lok Sabha are scheduled to be held by April-May 2019.