BJP still has a strong grip at grassroot level, says Union Minister Kalraj Mishra

Though the BJP suffered a major blow in the recent assembly bye-elections including in UP and Rajasthan, senior party leader and Union MSME minister Kalraj Mishra today said "BJP still has strong grip on the grass root-level people of the country".

"There could be some reasons that we have lost seats in the bye-elections but we still have strong grip in the grass-root level," Mishra told reporters on the sidelines of an interactive session organised by the MCC Chamber of Commerce & Industry here.

According to the Union minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises it would not be right to evaluate BJP's stand nationally going by its performance in the by-polls. "We have won few seats. And considering the bye-elections' results it would not be right to evaluate that BJP has lost its ground nationally," the BJP veteran said.

To a question on BJP's suffering a blow in the recent assembly bypolls where the party ceded ground to the ruling Samajwadi party in Uttar Pradesh, he said "the party (BJP) has won one seat in the just-concluded assembly by-poll in West Bengal but that does not mean that this is the end of Mamataji (the chief minister Mamata Banerjee regime) in the state.

"We have lost this time but it does not mean we will never win... We will again win," Mishra, a former president of the UP state unit of BJP said.

In the recent bye-election, the BJP which lost seven of the 10 seats held by it as well as one belonging to its ally Apna Dal to the ruling SP, posted win in only three constituencies.

Mishra said that the Lok Sabha elections and the by-polls were two different forms and should not be considered to evaluate any party's position. "One should not consider by-elections as a sample. By-elections and parliamentary elections are two different things altogether."

Referring to the party's massive success in the Lok Sabha election, he said "Indians had accepted Narendra Modi as the PM well before the elections... Even the people of West Bengal had accepted him as the PM and the people had created the Modi-wave... And by-polls in state Assembly seats always have local leaders' inspiration... And that is," he said.

He also rubbished that the absence of BJP president Amit Shah in the by-elections campaign in any way affected the party's results. "Amit Shah happens to be the party president and I have already said that bye-elections are a matter of the state...," Mishra stated.