Amit Shah holds door to door campaign to woo tribals in poll-bound Gujarat

Seeking the support of tribal population in poll-bound Gujarat, BJP chief Amit Shah today held door to door campaign in this remote village of Chhota Udaipur district.

He also addressed a booth-level party workers meeting and had lunch with a tribal family as part of Gujarat BJP's 'Vistarak' initiative, which aims at establishing direct contact with people ahead of the state Assembly polls later this year. Shah along with Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav and state party leaders went from door to door seeking votes for the saffron party in this village in central Gujarat.

The eastern Gujarat tribal belt, despite serious efforts of BJP, is dominated by Congress, which had in 2012 elections managed to win 16 to 17 seats out of the 28 assembly segments. With the BJP setting the target of winning 150 seats out of the total 182, in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which they consider as a prestige battle, garnering maximum seats in the tribal belt is crucial for the saffron player.

Shah and his team campaigned in Devaliya village under Chhota Udaipur constituency, which has been held by eight time Congress MLA Mohansinh Rathwa. In a brief address to the newly-inducted booth-level party workers from Devaliya village, Shah said while Gujarat remains the party's strong fortress, they have to make it further strong and ensure that it continues to remain strong. "We have decided to take BJP's ideology and strengthen its organisation at village level as part of 'vistarak' (outreach) programme.

"In Gujarat alone, a total 48,000 party workers will go door to door to explain party's programmes, our government's work at central and state level...No party would have undertaken such an exercise. And right here, you can see party workers from booth level right up to the national level," Shah said. "Our party values organisation and workers, who are the soul of the party. I had been to Lakshwadeep and stayed there for three days, visiting 15 booths where we inducted 40 new members. We are not strong there as we got only 3,200 votes in (2014) Lok Sabha elections," he said.

The BJP chief said he will continue his booth-level programmes in Gujarat in the coming three days, and will visit Sabarkantha for the same purpose. He praised Modi's leadership as a "matter of pride" for the party and exhorted 225 members from the village to take the message of the party to every person.

"This exercise is more important for Gujarat because we are going to have an election here. We have not lost any election in the state since 1995. When we had Narendra Modi as chief minister, we won 130 seats. Now that Modi is our prime minister, we will win 150 seats," he said. He later had lunch at the house of tribal family of Popat Rathwa. Rathwa said he has been a BJP worker since over two decades, and exuded confidence that the effort to expand party's presence in two booths in his village will ensure its victory in upcoming state Assembly elections.

"This is the first time that such a great person like the party president has come to my house. I am with BJP since last 22 years. Mostly people vote for Congress here, but this time votes will go to BJP, I am sure about it," he said. He said in preparation for Shah's lunch programme at his house, an LPG gas cylinder was given to him a day before. "Only today we got gas connection, although we had constructed toilet before," he said.