BJP winning 370 seats will be true tribute to Syama Prasad Mookerjee: PM Modi

New Delhi, Feb 17 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asked BJP members to build the party's Lok Sabha poll campaign around its pro-poor work and the country's development and enhanced standing globally, asserting that winning 370 seats will be a true tribute to its key ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee.

Mookerjee was a strident opponent of Article 370, which granted Jammu and Kashmir special rights. The Modi government scrapped the article in August 2019.

Addressing a meeting of the BJP's national office-bearers ahead of the start of the party's convention, he said every booth worker should now focus on polling booths and ensure at least 370 more votes for the party at each in the upcoming polls than in 2019.

Briefing reporters on Modi's speech, BJP General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the prime minister told the meeting that the opposition will raise "unnecessary and emotional issues" during the polls but party members should stick to the issues of development, pro-poor policies and the country's rising global standing.

Tawde said the party will launch a campaign to reach out to beneficiaries of various central government schemes from February 25.

Modi noted he has been the head of a government, including more than 12 years as Gujarat chief minister, for nearly 23 years and there has been no allegation of corruption.

"It's been an 'aarop mukt' and a 'vikas yukt' period," he said in his briefing, noting that there has been no such instance of such a long tenure of anyone not drawing any taint. PTI