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Amit Shah wants BJP workers to make a mark in Kerala's state elections

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Within two hours of BJP president Amit Shah leaving Kochi, Kerala's senior most party leaders went into a huddle to draft a road map for an aggressive membership drive and political campaign in the state.

Shah has asked the state unit to revise its targets for membership and assembly elections. In a state where the party has a membership of 5.6 lakh and has never won an election, Shah wants the party to aim not just at opening its account but capturing it in assembly polls. After West Bengal, the BJP is eyeing the Left strongholds in Kerala. The party is hoping to breach the CPM's support base of OBCs and Dalits.

To achieve this ambitious goal, Shah told state office bearers, district presidents and those in-charge of the membership campaign during his one-and-a-half day visit to Kerala, that the membership target should not be limited to 27.5 lakh in a state with 2.4 crore voters, according to sources. He said that if not 50 per cent of the 70 lakh households, in at least 40 per cent households, the BJP should strive to have a member. When some state party members expressed concern about the violence in CPM bastions like Kannur, Shah said party members should visit even families in those areas. After fresh calculations, the state party leaders gave anticipated membership figures which totalled 40 lakh, the sources said.

The party, which has conducted a demographic study in the state, has identified 80 of the 140 seats where the population of Hindus is over 60 per cent, though the percentage of Hindus in the state is just 54 per cent. A state party leader said the BJP will be focusing on these seats in its strategy for the 2016 assembly polls. Sources also claimed that a section of the Christian community was going soft on
the BJP.

At the meeting with the state leaders, Shah emphasised on the importance of organisational strength by citing the 1977 post-emergency scenario when the BJP filled the gap wherever it was organisationally strong. "In Kerala, the BJP is pinning its hopes on Shah's tactics. After Uttar Pradesh in Lok Sabha elections and later assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana, Shah is seen as a master strategist. His visit has created a lot of enthusiasm among the cadre and state leaders," says BJP state chief V Muralidharan.

However, the CPM is dismissive of the BJP's plans for Kerala and is of the view that the "ghar-wapsi (re-conversion)" issue will go against the party in a state which has a minority population of around 45 per cent. "The BJP is trying to polarise but it is not going to be easy for it in Kerala. For years the party has been struggling to open its account in the bi-polar politics of the state," says CPM leader P Rajeev.

Though the BJP is planning to contest all 140 seats in the assembly elections, it is keeping doors open for any outfit which agrees with the party's principles, sources said. Shah has told state leaders that the time was ripe for BJP to cash in on the political scenario when both Congress-led UDF and CPM-led UDF had internal problems. After Shah left on Saturday, the state BJP general secretaries had a three-hour meeting, in which they chalked out the house to house campaign for the membership drive in January and strengthening its anti-corruption movement.

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