Shah meets BJP leaders, assigns them key responsibilities for state polls

BJP president Amit Shah on Tuesday held a meeting with senior party leaders, including Union ministers, and assigned to the key responsibilities for the upcoming assembly polls in four states, as they took stock of election preparedness and strategy. Assembly polls in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand are scheduled to be held later this year. Delhi is likely to go to polls early next year.

Besides Shah, BJP's top brass, including working president J P Nadda, general secretary (organization) B L Santosh, general secretary Bhupender Yadav and vice president Om Mathur, attended the meeting. Yadav and Mathur are polls in charges for Maharashtra and Jharkhand respectively.

Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Narendra Singh Tomar, the election in charges for Delhi and Haryana respectively; Hardeep Puri and Nityanand Rai -- co-in charges for Delhi -- were also part of the deliberations. BJP general secretary and Haryana poll in-charge Anil Jain said the leaders deliberated over strategy and campaign programs for the assembly polls.

According to sources, the meeting stretched for several hours as the leaders brainstormed to fine-tune the party's strategy and gave it a final shape for implementation on the ground. They have also been advised to "evaluate" properly the leaders of rival parties who want to join the BJP, the sources said.

State-wise separate meetings were also held with the respective in-charges, they added. The BJP, which is in power in Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand, will fight the upcoming assembly elections under the leadership of its incumbent chief ministers.