Mission 2019: Amit Shah embarks on 95-day all-India tour

NEW DELHI: After guiding his party to a historic win in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, BJP National President Amit Shah on Saturday embarked on a country-wide 95-day tour viewed as a part of the 'master-plan' to win the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Ever since he became BJP president after Modi assumed charge as Prime Minister in 2014, Shah has campaigned intensively in every state election. Riding upon his well formulated strategies, BJP secured 282 seats in 2014 general election on its own winning a clear majority. Shah had delivered 71 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 and in 2017 he delivered the state itself to his party after what is being described as "14 years of exile". The BJP had won a clear majority only once before in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, winning 221 seats at the height of the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation in 1991. This time round, the party surpassed that by more than 90 seats The ace poll strategist is reportedly focusing more on those 120 seats that BJP lost in 2014 despite having a popular support. He has also urged leaders and workers to concentrate more on four states- West Bengal, Odisha, Telangana and Kerala, where BJP was only able win four seats out of 102 Lok Sabha constituencies. "We have also set a target of (winning) 120 seats where we had lost in 2014. My tour will focus on taking stock of our organisational strength, and further expansion of ideology and electoral appeal across the country," PTI quoted Shah as saying. The BJP has roped in about 600 full-timers in preparation for 2019 elections. "These 600 people will work as fulltimers till the counting of 2019 Lok Sabha elections," ET quoted a party source as saying. Each full-timer will be assigned one Lok Sabha seat where he would supervise strengthening of the party till 2019 election. Though, the BJP is banking on the popularity of PM Narendra Modi but Shah remains the backbone of the poll campaigns. The BJP office in a tweet said that Shah today began the 95-day long country-wide visit from Jammu and Kashmir.

श्री @AmitShah आज जम्मू-कश्मीर से पार्टी के सांगठनिक विस्तार के लिए देश भर में अपने 95 दिनों के प्रवास के कार्यक्रम की शुरुआत करेंगे।

— BJP (@BJP4India) April 29, 2017

The main aim of the visit was to strengthen the party at the booth-level and to spread and reach out to the last man in the last row with the prime minister's pro-poor schemes. He will meet party office bearers and workers and discuss the strategy of expansion of the organization, it said. Shah's tour will end by September 25, the 101th birth anniversary of Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyay.