The best is yet to come: JP Nadda blows the poll bugle

Setting the tone for the upcoming elections in five states, BJP president JP Nadda set targets to further strengthen the party’s organisation on Sunday, and asserted that “the best is yet to come”.

Addressing the party’s National Executive Meeting in Delhi, Nadda also reached out to Sikhs, who are in majority in poll-bound Punjab, by listing a number of measures that the Narendra Modi government has taken for the community, including expediting action against 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurdwaras and keeping langars outside the purview of the Goods and Services Tax.

Briefing reporters about the meeting, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that the executive hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, crossing the 100 crore vaccination milestone, and providing free food grains to 80 crore poor people.

Pradhan said that Nadda noted that this is the largest free food programme in human history.

On BJP’s growth in West Bengal, Pradhan quoted Nadda, and said that if one looked at the party’s growth in the state from the political science perspective, then there will be very few parallels of in Indian political history.

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According to Pradhan, Nadda said that if one looks at the BJP’s vote share in the 2014 assembly elections and the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, and compares them with the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and 2021 assembly polls, then it shows a substantial growth of the BJP in the state.

Setting new targets for the BJP’s organisational expansion, Nadda said that the party would constitute booth-level committees at all 10.4 lakh polling stations by December 25 and have panna committees, in reference to each page of voters’ list by April 6.

Citing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Pradhan said that the executive lauded Modi for his foresight of enacting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which aims at providing citizenship to minorities from some neighbouring countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Following Nadda’s speech, the CM of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, tabled the BJP’s resolution, touching various landmark initiatives taken by the Modi government.

Sharing the details of the resolution, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the resolution specifically mentioned that “we shall ensure the party’s victory in upcoming assembly elections”.

The resolution condemned the opposition’s “opportunistic” politics and its attempts to create fear during the pandemic.

The valedictory session of the meet will be addressed by PM Modi.

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The BJP’s National Executive Meeting, which should normally be held once in three months according to the party’s constitution, is being held for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The party’s national office-bearers, its national executive members from the national capital, and Union ministers are physically present in the meeting, while the chief ministers of states where the party is in power and national executive members from these states, are attending the meeting virtually. Yogi Adityanath, however, attended the meeting in Delhi.

(With inputs from Agencies)