What is BJP's two-fold agenda for 2019 Lok Sabha polls and beyond?

In the second week of June 2016, roughly nine months before the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) landslide in Uttar Pradesh, the party held its two-day national executive meeting in Allahabad. In the presence of Union cabinet members, members of Parliament and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, party president Amit Shah outlined the ambition that would come to pass in March 2017: “We will fight elections with full preparedness and form a government with a majority.”

A year before that, at the national executive meeting in Karnataka, Shah outlined the headway the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had made in 10 months since coming to power at the Centre — into Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir. “For the first time we have a BJP chief minister in Haryana. Similarly, a BJP minister has made his debut in Maharashtra,” beamed Shah.

It’s now 2017, and time for another national executive meeting, at another strategically important state, Odisha. Present this time are 13 CMs from BJP-run states, including the newest, Yogi Adityanath from Uttar Pradesh, along with, for the first time at the national executive, CMs of Uttarakhand and Manipur. The BJP, its alliances and allies are now at the helm in 17 states.

The agenda at Bhubaneswar is two-fold: a roadmap for Lok Sabha 2019; and conquering non-BJP bastions that will come up for grabs in the days ahead. First up: Himachal Pradesh, the Northeast sisters of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura, and Karnataka, the state perhaps best positioned to withstand the saffron surge. Plus, we look at Bihar, where opportunity beckons way before the next assembly poll. And then there’s West Bengal, which may be just a glimmer today in Shah’s eye, but a glimmer nevertheless. And let’s not forget Gujarat, a BJP bastion and the necessity for it to stay that way. We begin with Odisha, where the spotlight at the national executive meeting today is squarely on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah — and the Yogi.