BJP chief Amit Shah on Wednesday broke his silence on the party’s electoral defeat in three heartland states to the Congress, exactly a week after the votes were counted, accepting that the results had not been favourable but expressing confidence that these polls would have no bearing on the 2019 general election.
Shah had chosen not to comment on the BJP’s losses in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, an indicator of the extent of the setback before the Lok Sabha polls.
On Wednesday, he chose an event organised by Republic TV to remark for the first time in public on the results of the elections in five states, including Telangana and Mizoram.
“The results of the state elections have not been favourable, but it would be a mistake to link them to the 2019 general election. Issues in state elections are different from the Lok Sabha polls,” Shah said in response to a specific question on the elections in the five states.
“The 2019 election will be fought on the plank of India before and after 2014 and who will lead the country,” he added, suggesting that the fight for the parliamentary polls would be personality-driven.
To buttress his claim, Shah recalled how the BJP had won in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2003, but lost the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, and similarly lost the next general election despite retaining Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 2008.
While acknowledging last Tuesday’s defeat with “humility”, the BJP chief said the Congress had managed victories in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan through marginal leads, pointing out that it was different from the way the BJP had routed the Congress in other states.
“In MP the Congress managed to win just five seats more than us. In seven seats, the difference in votes was just 3,500,” Shah said. “In Rajasthan the Congress got just 1 lakh votes more than us. I am, however, not denying defeat. We accept the defeat with humility and the party will introspect,” he added.
Shah said Modi would not face any contest in 2019. The BJP president played down the power of a united Opposition, saying the proposed “mahagathbandhan” (grand alliance) was an “illusion”.
Shah said the BJP had defeated almost all the regional parties in their respective states in 2014 and their coming together would make no difference. “They are all regional leaders and so they can’t help each other,” he said.
The BJP boss said people would choose a strong leader like Modi in 2019 to lead the country and claimed that the party would make huge gains in Bengal, Odisha and the Northeast. “It is necessary for the country that a strong government comes to power,” he said.
Seeking to provide a simplistic mathematical calculation to claim that the BJP will win big next year, Shah said the party had secured approximately 17.5 crore votes in 2014 and bagged 282 seats.
“Now we have 9.14 crore BJP members, compared to just 2 crore in 2014. The central government has directly benefited more than 22 crore families (families and not individuals, he stressed) through various schemes,” Shah said, seeking to underline that the two figures (9.14 crore+22 crore=31.14 crore) would help the BJP sweep the 2019 polls.
Interacting later with the BJP workers from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry through videoconferencing, Prime Minister Modi asked them to reach out to as many people as possible and convince them about the good works done by his government.
