After five phases of polling, BJP president Amit Shah has expressed the confidence that the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be re-elected with an increased majority.
In an interview, on the campaign trail in Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Shah asserted that compared with 2014, the BJP would “increase our seats, improve our margins of victory as well, and also expand in terms of the areas that we represent.”
Mr. Shah dismissed suggestions that the Opposition alliances, especially in Uttar Pradesh, would in any way deny the BJP an electoral victory.
“There have been several occasions that such arithmetic has failed,” he said. “In the last Vidhan Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, arithmetic again was in the favour of the Opposition, and at that time I used to say and I repeat it now, that arithmetic will lose, and larger politics and preparations on the ground will win out in the end.”
Mr. Shah termed the decision to field Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in the Malegaon blasts case, the candidate from Bhopal as the party’s “satyagraha” against the charge of “Hindu terror”, for which he squarely blamed the Congress party.