BJP to hold national council meeting in Delhi on Feb 17-18 ahead of Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi, Feb 16 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to lay down the BJP's agenda for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls at a two-day meeting of its national council, which will begin Saturday and be attended by nearly 11,500 party members, from elected panchayat heads to party district presidents and Union ministers.

Party president J P Nadda will inaugurate the meeting and Modi will on Sunday deliver the valedictory address, a speech which is likely to draw the broader contours of the BJP's campaign and exhort its members to go all out to achieve his target for the party to win 370 seats in the elections.

The meeting, which will be held at the Bharat Mandapam, is going to be the biggest gathering of BJP delegates from across the country in recent memory, with some leaders recalling the gigantic plenary organised in Mumbai by the party in 1995 in which tens of thousands of its members had participated.

Senior BJP leaders, including chief ministers, state ministers, state party presidents and its organisational leaders from across the country, will be attending the meeting.

Representatives of the party's district bodies and 'morchas' from across the country will also attend the mega meeting.

In the national council meetings held in the last 10 years, including the two organised in the national capital weeks before the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the attendance had generally remained around 3,000.

If the Mumbai convention, where the then BJP president L K Advani had declared Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its prime ministerial candidate, cleared the path to power for the party, its leaders are hopeful that this national council will galvanise its cadres around Modi's leadership as he seeks to become the first prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to retain the office for a third straight term.

Senior party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad had said on Thursday that two resolutions are likely to be passed by the council.

Generally, one resolution highlights the prevailing political atmosphere and the party's stand on germane issue while another is underpinned by the state of economy.

The recent white paper on the economy tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the perceived disarray in the opposition INDIA bloc, the successful G20 summit in 2023, and the country's global standing are among the issues which are likely to figure in the speeches of its key leaders at the meeting and in the resolutions.

The outcomes of the Modi government's welfare initiatives besides the prime minister's focus on empowering what he has often described the four biggest "castes" of women, youth, poor and farmers may also be discussed, party leaders said.

Political watchers will also keep an eye on whether the ruling party touches on the issues of electoral bonds, which have been struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional and seized by opposition parties to mount an attack on the BJP, and the ongoing protests by farmers, mostly from Punjab.

Prasad noted that the BJP won its maiden majority in the Lok Sabha in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and delivered a bigger win in 2019 following the council meetings held before the two elections, exuding confidence that the convention this time will put it on course to win 370 seats in the 543-member House.

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance will also cross 400 seats as asserted by Modi, he added. PTI