Amit Shah to visit Kerala for strengthening BJP base ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls

Thiruvananthapuram: As part of his nationwide tour to strengthen the party base ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP president Amit Shah will meet people from various fields in Kerala during his three-day visit to the state starting Friday. [caption id=“attachment_3486175” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File Image of Amit Shah. PTI[/caption] A meeting with the state leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is one of the main programmes scheduled for Shah during his day-long visit to Kochi. The BJP chief is expected to discuss matters related to the expansion of the NDA in Kerala during his visit. Shah is scheduled to hold a meeting of BJP office-bearers, Sangh Parivar leaders and special invitees on 3 June in Thiruvananthapuram. He will lay the foundation stone for the party’s new state headquarters here and is also scheduled to attend a booth committee meeting on 4 June, BJP spokesperson M S Kumar told reporters. Ending the decades-old bipolar politics of the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, the BJP scripted a new chapter in the 2015 state Assembly polls by winning a seat. It was the first ever victory of a BJP candidate in an Assembly or a parliamentary election in the southern state. The vote share of the party in Kerala had increased from around 6 percent to 16 percent in the 2016 Assembly polls. The Bharat Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), a political party formed by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, a powerful social organisation of the backward Ezhava community, joining the NDA also helped the saffron party make inroads into the traditional vote-banks of UDF and LDF to a great extent.