Amit Shah meets partymen, RSS chief in Nagpur

Nagpur: Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah spent about seven hours in the city on Monday after landing in Nagpur around noon. In the evening, he was closeted with Sarsanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat and his deputy Bhaiyyaji Joshi at the Mahal headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for over an hour. Incidentally, Shah and Bhagwat travelled in the same service flight from Delhi in the morning. Yet, he visited the Mahal office, mainly to visit Joshi who is not keeping well since the past few days. While it could not be known what transpired inside the closed-door meeting, it is being speculated that three years of Modi government, preparations for the next elections and also the elections for President of India in July, could have been discussed. The BJP is firm on fielding a party candidate, most probably a tribal or from the scheduled caste, for the President's post. When news of his coming to Nagpur emerged in the morning, it was being circulated that Shah was to address over 900 RSS third year trainees who are participating in a three-day training programme at the Reshimbagh ground. But party sources said the BJP president only went to Mahal where the RSS headquarters is located. Shah is reported to have come for the short visit to hold a local party functionaries' meeting to discuss 'vistarak' programme (spreading and strengthening party organization) with a view to achieve a target of winning 400 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 elections. He has embarked on a 110-day nationwide tour for implementing the programme to expand party up to booth level. What was surprising about the visit was that Shah landed here two days after Nitin Gadkari's grand birthday bash on Saturday. Partymen had announced that he would come but Shah chose to skip the event.