Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked BJP leaders to pay “true tribute” to key ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee by winning 370 Lok Sabha seats while party president J.P. Nadda exhorted members to put all their energy into achieving the target at the start of the two-day BJP national convention on Saturday.

The national convention, coming against the backdrop of reports of more defections from the Congress and attended by over 10,000 leaders and cadres, aims to prepare the BJP machinery to go for the kill.

Mookerjee, one of the founding members of the BJP’s predecessor, Bharatiya Jana Sangha, was a strident opponent of Article 370. By invoking him, Modi sought to link the target of 370 seats with the abrogation of the constitutional provision that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Modi told the party office-bearers that they could achieve the target by ensuring that 370 additional votes were polled at each booth. Briefing reporters, party general secretary Vinod Tawde said that Modi told the party leaders to not pay attention to the diversionary tactics of the Opposition and to focus on educating the voters about the good work done by the Centre in the last 10 years.

Later, in his inaugural address, Nadda focused on thanking Modi for the “unimaginable” expansion of the BJP and asked the party leaders to hurl themselves into the upcoming elections and ensure a record victory for Modi in his third term.

“We have to cross 370 seats with full strength. We have to get down at every polling booth with all our strength and ensure that BJP and Modi not only score a hat-trick but do so with a record victory,” Nadda said amid chants of “Modi, Modi” in the Bharat Mandapam auditorium.

“There was a time when we used to struggle to save our deposits…. And today we are the world’s largest party,” Nadda said, crediting the transformation to Modi.