Amid rift with Shiv Sena, Amit Shah asks BJP cadres to prepare for solo 2019 elections fight in Maharashtra

MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will go solo in Maharastra for the 2019 polls, said party president Amit Shah on Sunday.

Shah's direction comes three days after BJP ally Shiv Sena boycotted the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha on Friday asking for more accountability from the Centre. 

Shah held closed-door assessment meeting of senior party leaders here with the focus on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and strengthening the cadre in Maharashtra.

Ahead of the crucial floor test, the party held a meeting where the decision to boycott the house proceeding was taken. Later, Sena lauded Congress president Rahul Gandhi in its mouthpiece Saamana over the latter’s speech during no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha.

Asking party cadres to prepare for the elections alone, Shah laid down a 23-point working strategy and discussed issues such as increasing the party strength, addressing new voters' groups based on their profession, gender, likings etc and a regular follow up of the voters by the local party workers.

The party will soon declare the names of candidates for all 48 seats in Maharashtra, he added.

In 2014, of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, BJP had won 23 seats, the Shiv Sena 18, the NCP four, the Congress two, and former BJP ally Swabhimani Paksh one.

The BJP leader also singer Lata Mangeshkar at her home in south Mumbai as part of the party's "contact for support" campaign.

Apart from meeting the 'Vistaraks' of the party whose mandate is to increase the network of the BJP in different geographies, Shah also interacted with the members of the 'Lok Sabha Toli', a group that consists of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, state unit chief Raosaheb Danve, Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, ministers Sudhir Mungantiwar, Chandrakant Patil and Pankaja Munde, Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar, among others.

With agency inputs