Amit Shah arrives in Manipur to set tone for 2019 polls

Amit Shah

As part of the exercise to prepare strategy for the parliamentary elections next year, BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday arrived in the city. He will hold meetings with the BJP chief ministers of the northeastern states.

Shah is also scheduled to hold meetings with the party presidents of states in which the BJP is not in power. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sources said the party is launching an all-out pre-election exercise to win all Lok Sabha seats in the Northeast.

All chief ministers, ministers and party functionaries are putting up in a three-star hotel in Imphal for holding the meetings round-the-clock.

Manipur unit BJP chief and Rajya Sabha MP K. Bhabananda said: "Amit Shah held talks with the leaders of every northeastern state, discussing how to win all Lok Sabha seats in all the eight states."

Both Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh and Bhabananda met Shah.

Manipur has been organising the people through "Go to Hills" and "Go to Village" missions. Under these projects, selected persons are given various benefits, including free gas connections.

However, senior Congress leader and former Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh said: "All developmental projects had been started during the Congress rule of 15 years. All that the BJP-led government has done now is that it inaugurated those projects."

He said that a party which restricts the food habit of communities cannot find a permanent foothold in the Northeast. He recalled how some BJP functionaries had resigned in Meghalaya in protest against ban on cow-slaughter, and added that "beef is a part of culture of the people of the state".

Another senior Congress leader and former Manipur Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam said: "Despite all the eye dazzlings, BJP will be wiped out in the 2019 parliamentary elections."