Headlines
BJP to strengthen presence in south India
Bengaluru, July 5
After enrolling 110 million
members in southern states recently, the BJP plans to further strengthen
its position in the region through mass contact programmes and study
camps for newly-enrolled members, the party said on Sunday.
"BJP
national president Amit Shah has directed our lawmakers and
office-bearers of state units of southern states to build a rapport with
newly enrolled members and also to flag the achievements of the BJP-led
NDA government at the Centre to the people," BJP's general secretary
Muralidhara Rao told IANS.
He was briefing media persons after
the BJP's day-long south zone meeting held at the sprawling Bangalore
Palace grounds in the city centre.
Amit Shah presided over the meeting with district presidents and other office-bearers of eight states.
Even
as the Karnataka unit of the BJP would try to retain control of
Bengaluru civic body in the ensuing elections in August, the party units
in other southern states have been told to launch door-to-door contact
with new members and to create a mass base for the party.
During
the drive from January to March, the party's southern state units had
enrolled a whopping 110 million members to work for its growth and
expansion in south India.
Study camps for active members would be
held in all southern states to ascertain their areas of interest and
preferences so as to make optimal use of the party's human resource at
all levels, Rao said.
Barring Karnataka, where the party stormed
to power in the 2008 assembly election only to lose to the Congress in
the 2013 polls, its presence in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Puducherry,
Tamil Nadu and Telengana ranges from minimal to modest.
"We are
confident of making inroads in other southern states to win the people's
trust, as we did in other states to capture power for good governance
and socio-economic development," the BJP leader asserted.
About
1,000 delegates, including office-bearers of state units and lawmakers
in legislatures and parliament participated in the meeting and
interacted with Shah to chalk up a strategy.