West Bengal, Telangana & Odisha in focus as Amit Shah takes charge for Lok Sabha polls

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Lok Sabha elections around the corner, Union home minister Amit Shah will be in action with a special focus on crucial states for the party.

As part of the Lok Sabha preparations, Shah will visit West Bengal on December 26 and Telangana on December 28. In both states, he will not hold any public meetings. His visit is purely to devote time to the organisation taking stock of the party's preparedness for the polls.

Shah is expected to hold several organisational meetings where he is likely to give instructions to the state leadership with a time-bound delivery program. Sources in the BJP told ET that Shah will personally take control of states like West Bengal, Telangana, Odisha and a few others. These are the states where BJP had no presence before 2014 and Shah, as party president, worked hard to establish the BJP in these states.

In West Bengal, the BJP won 18 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, a gain of 16 from 2014. In Telangana, the BJP won four seats in 2019 and in Odisha, it won eight seats.

A repetition of the 2019 electoral result is important for the BJP as the party targets to win more seats than in 2019. Shah had recently taken control of the MP and Chhattisgarh assembly elections and laid down a strong organisational structure that helped BJP secure victory.

A similar formula is being worked out under his leadership for opposition-ruled states where right from booth to the state level, the party workers will be tasked with adding more members to the party and creating a network of sympathisers. In Telangana, Congress has just won the assembly election, and the BJP would work hard to improve the party's performance. However, the BJP believes that Lok Sabha elections are different and the voters prefer stability at