BJP's poll preparation in Telangana to get fillip with Amit Shah's visit

Hyderabad, March (IANS) The preparation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) preparations for Lok Sabha elections in Telangana will get a fillip with Union Home Minister Amit Shah's visit on Tuesday.

The top BJP leader will interact with the party's social media strategists. He will also address a meeting of polling booth presidents of the party.

The meeting titled 'Vijay Sankalp Sammelan' is scheduled to be held at L.B. Stadium at 1 p.m.

He is also expected to give directions to the state BJP leadership on the strategy to be adopted for the upcoming polls.

HM Amit Shah is likely to set the roadmap for the party cadres to achieve the target by highlighting the achievements of the BJP-led government at the Centre during the last 10 years and emphasising the need to elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi as PM for a third consecutive term.

HM Amit Shah had last visited Hyderabad on December 28. He had addressed a meeting of the mandal presidents of the BJP as part of the poll preparations.

He had asked the party workers to work hard to win a majority of the seats in the state and increase the vote share to 35 per cent.

This was HM Amit Shah's first visit to Telangana after the recent Assembly elections, in which BJP secured eight seats in the 119-member House.

The BJP is upbeat as two sitting MPs and several other leaders from Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) joined its camp during the last few days.

BJP leaders are confident of making a clean sweep this time.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the state last week boosted the morale of the party cadres.

During his two-day visit, PM Modi addressed public meetings at Adilabad and Sangareddy after launching various development projects.

The recent Vijay Sankalp Yatras of the BJP across the state also lifted the spirits of the party cadres.

Several central ministers, chief ministers of the BJP-ruled states and other senior leaders had participated in the yatras, which covered all Lok Sabha constituencies.

In the recent Assembly elections, the BJP bagged eight seats, up from just one in the 2018 elections.

The BJP also managed to double its vote share from 6.98 per cent in 2018 to almost 14 per cent.

However, compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the vote share of the BJP came down.

This time, the BJP contested 111 seats and left eight segments for its ally Jana Sena Party (JSP), which drew a blank.

The BJP had won just a single seat in the 2018 Assembly elections.

It had later improved its tally to three after winning two seats in the by-elections.

In 2019, the BJP had polled 19.45 per cent votes and bagged four out of 17 Lok Sabha seats.

It had contested alone and this was the highest number of seats won by the party in two decades.

The BJP early this month announced candidates for nine out of 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Three out of four sitting MPs featured in the list.

They include Union Minister for Tourism and Culture and state BJP president G. Kishan Reddy and BJP general secretary Bandi Sanjay Kumar.

The BJP decided to field B.B. Patil from Zahirabad.

The BRS MP had joined the BJP a day ago.

The BJP named Pothuganti Bharat as its candidate from Nagarkurnool.

He along with his father and sitting MP Pothuganti Ramulu joined the BJP on February 29.

On March 10, four leaders of BRS joined the BJP.

Former MPs, Sitaram Naik and Godam Nagesh and former MLAs -- S. Saidi Reddy and Jalgam Venkat Rao joined the BJP at the party headquarters in Delhi in the presence of BJP general secretary in-charge of Telangana Tarun Chugh.