New Delhi, Sept. 15: Amit Shah has asked Bihar BJP leaders to campaign aggressively and strengthen the party down to the booth level in all 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the move seen as a clear signal to marginalise ally Nitish Kumar.
The BJP chief issued the directive yesterday at a meeting of a core group of state leaders, the first since the party joined the government led by Nitish who returned to the NDA in July after breaking off with Lalu Prasad. Sources said the message from Shah was clear: shed dependence on allies and strengthen the organisation in such a way that the party is in a position to win all 40 Lok Sabha seats on its own in 2019.
BJP leaders who attended the meeting, however, said the message shouldn't be interpreted as a signal that the BJP alone would contest all 40 seats and leave nothing for allies in 2019. "We are not going to contest all 40 seats. It was a general directive to strengthen the party," a BJP leader said.
At the same time, the leaders acknowledged the old arrangement with the JDU would not continue, that the BJP would contest a lion's share of the seats and leave little for Nitish's JDU. The BJP had won 22 seats, and allies Lok Janshakti Party's six and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party three in 2014. BJP leaders indicated the party could contest more than 22 seats in 2019.
Shah asked BJP ministers in the Nitish-led government to hold janata darbars (people's courts), meet voters regularly and solve their problems, sources said. Shah is likely to visit Bihar in November. The Shah-led BJP has adopted an aggressive line by striving to reduce dependence on allies and party leaders said the Bihar push was a move in that direction. "Shah believes the BJP will get allies only when it is strong," a leader said.
BJP managers believe that under Shah, the party will not give Nitish an upper hand, as was the case when the allies ran Bihar from 2005 to 2013. The first such signal came when the JDU was not given any berth in the Narendra Modi government's reshuffle earlier this month.
