Amit Shah holds ‘strategy meeting’ with senior leaders at party’s ‘war room’

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 14

The BJP appears to have revived its old party office, 11 Ashoka Road, (now an unofficial ‘war room’), for informal meetings on strategy building for the upcoming Assembly elections

After a brainstorming session on Uttar Pradesh with the core group leaders of the state unit earlier this week, sources say Union Home Minister Amit Shah held another informal meeting with senior party leaders, including Piyush Goyal, BL Santhosh and Arun Singh, at the old party office on Wednesday.

All five poll-bound states were discussed, they said, adding that further strategic meetings with individual state leaders are also expected to be held there soon.

The general idea is that while official meetings can take place at the new headquarters on the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, informal meetings can be held at the Ashoka Road ‘war room’, primarily because of its convenient central location. 

With elections around the corner, the BJP central leadership has been deliberating and reviewing election strategies.

Shah, who is scheduled to visit Uttarakhand later this week on a two-day visit to review election strategies, will also be visiting other election-bound states in coming days.

He will be in Goa on Thursday to attend a party event.

The last meeting was on Uttar Pradesh, where the party top brass is  keeping a hawk's eye on the aftermath of the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, which has the potential to adversely impact the party’s prospects not just in UP but in neighbouring Uttarakhand and Punjab, observers say, a reason enough for the BJP to be concerned.

The opposition has been demanding sacking of Shah's deputy, Ajay Mishra, for his son's alleged involvement in the case.