BJP meet: Party eyes big boost in vote share to secure 'overwhelming' win in 2024

The BJP has set its target to ensure an ‘overwhelming’ win in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking key organisational leaders to work towards boosting the party’s vote share by 10 per cent, sources told PTI. Home Minister Amit Shah said that the BJP’s performance should leave the opposition “stunned”, the sources said. Addressing the BJP’s national office-bearers and state presidents on the concluding day of the two-day brainstorming meeting on Saturday, Shah underlined the primacy of organisation in elections and said it should score such an “overwhelming” win that the opposition thinks many times before challenging it, sources said. With the opposition INDIA bloc planning to put up a one-on-one fight against the BJP, Modi called for raising the BJP’s vote share by 10 per cent from its show in the 2019 polls when the ruling party had fetched over 37 per cent of votes while the National Democratic Alliance led by it had bagged around 45 per cent votes. Since coming to power at the Centre in 2014, the BJP has continuously striven to raise its vote share to 50 per cent in state assembly polls and succeeded in this feat in many elections. The prime minister emphasised the need to reach out to women, youth, farmers and the poor - whom he has often described as the four biggest “castes”.He asked party leaders to connect a maximum number of these people with the ongoing ‘Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra’, which aims at saturation of his government’s flagship welfare schemes. The sources said the party’s top brass did not set any specific seat target but emphasised ensuring a win which should be bigger than its 2019 performance when the BJP had bagged 303 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. They accused the opposition of resorting to lies and spreading fake narratives but expressed confidence that people would reward Modi with a third straight term at the Centre. Top party leaders, in their speeches, asked BJP functionaries to strengthen its booth committees everywhere to ensure that its local cadres reach more and more people. The BJP’s big win in the recent assembly polls also came up for praise in the meeting, with the party unit presidents of the three Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh speaking on the victories. Modi’s leadership, the appeal of his government’s welfare schemes and the strength of its organisational machinery were cited as big reasons for the win. The January 22 consecration ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya also came up for discussion as the party is confident that it will be a major issue in its favour in the polls. Different ‘morchas’ of the party spoke about their upcoming programmes in the run-up to the polls.